


i don't wanna be just friends.

by azuriri



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Crush, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, School, Slow Burn, Volleyball, confused love, i made the plot up as i wrote so ???, i wrote this when i was bored, relationship, slight angst (almost nonexistent really), slight spoiler in the end but you don't have to read it if you don't want to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:21:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 43,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23315308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azuriri/pseuds/azuriri
Summary: You move to Tokyo and are enrolled at Itachiyama Academy. There you managed to become the manager of the boys volleyball team and develop a crush on their ace, Sakusa Kiyoomi.
Relationships: Komori Motoya & Sakusa Kiyoomi, Sakusa Kiyoomi/Reader
Comments: 140
Kudos: 651





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> For an academy, I'm riding on the assumption that they're in dorms since Shiratorizawa also has a dormitory system. Also there was a panel in the manga (not spoilery I promise) with Sakusa in what looks like a dorm room.

Moving to Tokyo was a big change for you. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but you grew to enjoy the comfort your old town gave you. You were familiar there, you knew who everyone was and where everything was. In Tokyo, it’s a fresh canvas to you and you need to learn where the paint likes to sit, where it doesn’t and what type of paint the canvas likes.

You’ve enrolled into Itachiyama Academy where dorms exist for you to live in. Your parents enjoyed that fact as they were still apartment hunting. The only reason why you’re in Tokyo in the first place is because your parents were offered to run one of the many chains their company had and they took the offer. Unfortunately, the residence you were all supposed to be living in was still under renovations and so a temporary stay must be found. As mentioned before, the Itachiyama dormitories served as a perfect living space for you. 

“Good morning [l/n]-san,” the principal of Itachiyama greeted the morning we came to get me settled in. “I’ll show you up to your room and show you some things as we go.” The principal was old, probably in his mid-70s with silver hair. He explains to you and your parents the bathrooms, the cafeteria and some of the rules that are to be abided. “I’ve asked your roommate to show you around the place more. It’d be best to get to know her as she is in your class as well,” the principal smiles as you awkwardly smile back. 

You wouldn’t define yourself as shy. You’re definitely a lot more outgoing when you're around people you know. New environments and people have you feeling awkward and quiet. 

The principal knocks on a door to which is opened moments later by a girl in a yellow baggy t-shirt and black gym shorts. “Good morning Yamamoto-sensei,” she yawns while bowing to the principal. Turning to you, he introduces the girl.

“This is Ishida-san. Ishida-san, this is [l/n]-san. You two will be roommates for the rest of high school. Why don’t you help her settle in and show her around the dorms,” suggested the principal. Ishida nods her head sleepily and your parents hand you your luggage. 

“I know it’ll be hard to get used to but at least last year got a taste of high school right?” you dad tries to joke but it comes out flat and a bit nervous. Your mom frowns at him before placing a kiss onto your forehead.

“What he means is that even if you’re transferring in your second year, you should have no problems getting used to these new surroundings. We want you to have fun here and we’re very thankful to have such a considerate daughter,” your mother explains. You give them both a hug and enter your dorm room. 

The room isn’t very large. It contains a bunk bed, two closets and two desks and chairs. You could tell which desk was going to be yours as one of them has already been trashed with notebooks and pens. The floor was also littered in articles of clothing. 

“Sorry it’s so messy. I was studying late last night and I forgot you were coming today. I promise I’ll keep it clean,” Ishida apologizes with a tired smile. 

“Don’t worry about it,” you say, trying to lighten the situation up with a smile. The two of you stood awkwardly in silence. Ishida being completely out of it due to the principal serving as her alarm clock this morning and isn’t 100% awake yet and you not knowing what to do or say.

Ishida quickly shakes her head and pats her cheeks. “Ugh I’m so sorry. You can get settled in while I go brush my teeth. The closet to the right is yours, I’ve taken the top bunk so the bottom bunk is yours and this desk is also yours,” she says patting the empty white desk. 

“Thanks, you go get ready for the day then,” you smile and she heads out of the room with a small toiletry bag. You open up your suitcase and begin to unpack your belongings.

By the time Ishida returns, you were almost done putting your stationary away onto your desk. She quickly swipes up her clothes on the floor and shoves them into a laundry hamper in her closet. “So, have you figured out a club you’d want to join?” she asks.

You consider it. In the past you’ve joined a bunch of clubs. You liked art so you were a part of your middle school’s art council but shifted to being a manager for sports teams in high school. “I was a manager for my old school’s volleyball team so maybe I’ll try that,” you say.

Ishida chuckles. “Good luck getting that position. Many tried and have utterly failed,” she says with a wide grin. You furrow your brows.

“Why?” 

“Our school’s volleyball team is nationally one of the top schools. Especially the boys. They’ve won national championships more than any other team in the city. We also have one of the top three spikers of the nation and the top libero in the nation here playing for us.” You remember one of the boys on your team mentioning the top three spikers though you only remember Ushijima Wakatoshi’s name as you saw him play in the national youth team recently. Having these two elite players would definitely have set some eyes on the team. “I mean you could try to apply but I don’t think they’ll accept you. I’m trying not to be rude but that’s just how it’s been for the last couple of years,” Ishida tries to reason to which you’re completely understanding. 

“It’s alright, I’ll probably be manager for another sport or try another club. Are you a part of a club?” you ask to which Ishida nods.

“I’m on the track and field team. I usually run sprints but sometimes the coach tells me to do hurdles once in a while,” she smiles proudly. Maybe track and field will be a sport you could do. Or not, you’re a fast sprinter but definitely not outstandingly fast. Ishida walks to the door and motions you to follow. She hands you a key with a number on it. “It’s the room key, try not to lose it or Yamamoto-sensei will be really mad. Come, I wanna show you around,” Ishida opens the door and you exit your dorm room.


	2. Chapter Two

Ishida shows you pretty much a repeat of the brief tour the principal gave you except with some additional information. “Breakfast always starts at 6:00AM and closes at 8:00AM on school days and 9:00AM on our days off. Lunch is between 12:00PM and 2:00PM and dinner is at 6:00PM to 8:00PM,” she says as you walk by the cafeteria. It looks like a typical cafeteria that you would see at a school. Ishida leads you back towards a double staircase, “the girl’s dorms are on the right and the boy’s dorms are on the left.” You follow Ishida up the stairs where you both end up back in your dorm room.

“I think it’ll take me a while to get used to this place,” you admit that the sheer size of the dorm can get anyone confused. Ishida agrees with you whole-heartedly. 

“You can say that again,” she smiles, telling you the time she spent hours walking in circles trying to find the bathroom in her first year before some third year boys took pity and helped her. 

The next morning was classes and your alarm clock that was screaming at 6:00AM woke you and Ishida up. Groggily, you got up and sat dazed at the side of your bed for a couple of minutes, trying uselessly to get a few minutes of sleep in before actually getting up. Ishida still snored loudly in her sleep before her alarm clock went off again, successfully waking her up. 

By the time the two of you were heading to your class, it seems that the whole school was already there. Ishida leads you up to your shared classes on the second floor to your classroom. Above your class door, like all high school, had your class number on it. Just like your old school, you were in class one this year. 

In the class, many students were already seated. Some of them greeted you and Ishida when the two of you walked in. “Hey you must be the new student!” a girl in a ponytail greeted you to which you meekly said hi to. 

“I’m [l/n] [f/n]” you greeted, trying your best to be friendly. The girl introduced herself as Kimura Ayame, coincidently Ishida’s best friend since elementary school. 

“I hope you forgive Rin-chan for whatever she does. I swear she has a good heart!” Kimura exclaims, putting Ishida into a headlock. 

“Ayame stop, I can’t breathe,” Ishida chokes out before Kimura releases her. Coughing a bit, Ishida sits down at a desk beside Kimura’s and sighs. “She’s captain of the judo team,” Ishida briefly explains. 

“Captain when she’s only a second year?!” you exclaim in shock to which Kimura beams. Flexing her arms, she kisses her biceps.

“Six championships in a row and still counting,” she says proudly. Inwardly, you wished you were good at something to be on a level like Kimura. You did figure skating until you were twelve and ultimately never landed your axel. To this day, you’re just slightly jealous of the young ten year olds being able to jump triples. 

The bell rings and every shuffles to their seat. You look around the room for an empty seat and disappointingly didn't see an empty seat near your new friends. Instead there was a seat on the other side of the room at the back that was unoccupied. You made your way over there and sat down as the teacher came in ready to start your first period class. 

English was never your favourite subject but you just seemed to be getting by in the classes fine. You didn’t speak fluently or write well and your listening skills were mediocre at best. Your best skill in the language was reading but it was quite simple interpreting some sentences once you were able to use the alphabet.

The English teacher, Anderson-sensei, who was from America, required everyone to spend five minutes talking to the person next to them in full English. The person to your right, a tall girl with a short bob was already engaged with a conversation with the other girl sitting next to her. So you turn to your left, facing a tall boy with rounded eyebrows.

“Hello!” He greets you in English. “My name is Komori Motoya. What’s your name?” He asks with a very cheerful tone.

“My name is [l/n] [f/n]. Nice to meet you!” you say back. 

“Are you the new student?” Komori asks, words dragging out as he tries to find the correct words in English to say to you. Luckily, “yes” was one of the easy words to say. “Wow! Nice to meet you!” he says, clearly not knowing what else to say. Anderson-sensei calls out that you all have two more minutes to converse before he starts today’s lesson. 

“How are you today?” you ask lamely, trying to find something to talk about and that was in your very limited English vocabulary.

“I am good today. Do you like the weather?” he responds. You look out the window to check the weather. It’s cloudy with a bit of rain.

“No, I do not like the weather. Rain is not my favourite,” you say hoping your grammar was correct. 

“I do not like rain too! My friend really do not like rain as well,” Komori says as he shows you a double thumbs down. You chuckle and Anderson-sensei calls everyone’s attention forward. To start today’s lesson on exceptions in the English language.

Second period is Japanese history, a class you definitely prefer more. Ida-sensei didn’t waste any time before starting her lesson. Komori slips you a piece of paper.

‘This class is soooooo boring. Ida-sensei talks and talks and it gets me really sleepy :(’ it says. You flip over the piece of paper and write ‘it’s better than English class. English makes me so confused I just want to sleep’ and hand it over to Komori. Komori reads over the piece of paper and tries to keep his chuckles quiet but Ida-sensei notices.

“Is there something funny about the Great Buddha being completed in the Todaji Temple in 752?” she asks with a scowl. Komori quickly shakes his head. “Then I would advise you to stop snickering at love notes and pay attention to the lesson at hand,” she says. Both you and Komori’s face flushes red. 

At lunch after your fourth period class of math, Komori starts talking to you properly and not through notes. 

“How do you like it here?” he asks as he brings out a bento box. 

“I like it, everyone here seems pretty friendly,” you say, bringing out your own bento that you grabbed from the table at the cafeteria this morning. 

“People from your old school weren’t?” Komori asks, concerned. You shake your head.

“No, no, nothing of the sort. They were all very nice. It’s just according to people I’ve already met, everyone’s pretty nice,” you tried to reason, your face flushing up at being called out. Komori laughs.

“How many people is that?”

“Three…” Komori laughs whole-heartedly. 

“Made a new friend [l/n]-san?” Ishida says with Kimura behind her. Pulling up some chairs, they sat at your desk. 

“She can’t be friends with me?” Komori asks in disbelief.

“No, I’m happy she found a new friend that’s all,” Ishida says as she opens up her bento. Kimura taps your leg and passes you her phone. Written on her phone was a simple message. 

‘She likes Komori-san’ 

Nodding your head, Kimura quickly erased her message and smiled. “Oh [l/n]-san, Komori-kun is on the volleyball team. I mean if you want, you can ask him,” Ishida says, taking a bite out of a rice ball.

“I was wondering if you guys needed a manager. I was the manager for my old school’s volleyball team so I was thinking of doing the same thing here,” you explain to Komori who is chewing on a celery stick.

“Hm,” he hums as he’s finishing the celery stick. “Well we’ve been fine without one for the past couple of years. The coach doesn’t really like a female manager because most of the time the girls who do apply aren’t doing it for the benefit of the team,” he says.

“So I’ll take that as a no,” you respond, taking a bite out of your rice ball. 

“Not necessarily, I mean do you know who Sakusa is?” Komori asks. Noticeably, some heads turn towards your direction at the mention of Sakusa’s name. 

“I think I’ve heard of that name somewhere but no not really,” you admit. 

“Well that’s a shocker!” Kimura exclaims. “The biggest reason the volleyball team doesn’t really take female managers is because they all try to get closer with Sakusa-san and Sakusa-san well… he,” Kimura says before stopping herself trying to find the most appropriate words to describe him. “He’s very particular about germs.”

“He’s a germaphobe,” Ishida says as a matter of fact.

“Yeah he is but he’s a good guy. He’s our ace of the team,” said Komori, praising his teammate. “Would you like to meet him? I’m sure that if he’s fine with you being the manager then the coach will be okay with it too,” Komori explains, closing his finished bento and placing it back into his bag. 

You agreed and followed Komori out of the class. “What position do you play Komori-san?” you ask him.

“I’m a libero,” he states proudly. 

“But you’re so tall!” you say flabbergasted. 

“Ha ha,” he laughs. “You don't have to be short to play libero [l/n]-san!”

“I know. I thought you were a middle blocker with that height,” you say. Komori leads you to Class Three and slides open the door. He walks over to a guy with a mask and curly hair. He’s pretty cute, you admit quietly to yourself.

“Hey Sakusa!” Komori greets the guy with the dark curly hair. You hide your shock, no you can’t think he’s cute or else you’re not going to be accepted as the manager. Sakusa raises his eyebrows and nods at Komori. “This is [l/n]-san. She transferred today and was thinking about being our manager,” Komori says. 

Sakusa scowls. “Why are you asking me?” he says dryly. 

“For… your opinion.” 

“That’s for the coach to decide.”

Komori sighs. “Well if it’s up to you what do you think?” 

“We don’t need another person infesting the gym. We also don’t need another person spreading their germs.” Well, he is a germaphobe alright. 

“It’s alright Komori, it’s not that big of a deal,” you say, standing there awkwardly and ready to leave. 

“Come on, just think about it please. I promise that she won’t be too much to handle,” Komori pleads. A long pause lingered between the boys. 

“Do what you want but if she doesn’t clean her hands before touching the volleyballs or anything for that matter I’m telling the coach to kick her off the team,” Sakusa states bluntly. But, Komori smiles brightly.

“Thanks! I’ll go tell the coach right away!” Komori says excitedly and exits the classroom with you trailing behind. Komori leads you to the staff faculty room to find the advisor of the volleyball team. In that moment Ishida and Kimura turn around the corner.

“How did it go? Isn’t Sakusa pretty good looking?” Kimura muses slinging an arm around your shoulder. Ishida rolls her eyes beside her.

“He is kind of cute but I’m not going to dwell on that especially if I do become the manager” you say only for Kimura and Ishida to hear, scared that Komori might know. 

“All you girls like Sakusa. What do you even see in him? There’s so many better boys out there,” Ishida says. 

“Yeah Komori you dork in love,” Kimura says a little too loudly. Ishida quickly blushes red and checks to see if Komori was still there. Thankfully, he went inside the staff faculty room to go talk to the advisor of the volleyball team. 

Ishida looks at you and asks, “did she tell you?” 

“Yeah, she did at lunch,” you say. 

“Unlike this clearly unloyal friend, you can’t tell anyone!” urges Ishida.

“Alright I won’t tell anyone,” you chuckle, promising Ishida. 

“Can’t tell anyone what?” At the perfect moment, Komori emerges from the staff faculty room. Ishida immediately blushes even redder than she already was and Kimura turns away snickering.

“Um… nothing much I guess,” you say unsure. “How did it go?” you ask, trying to change the topic.

“Practice is every afternoon after classes and morning practice is at 6:00AM every weekday. On Saturday we practice from 2:00PM to 7:00PM. See you at practice today manager,” Komori smiles.


	3. Chapter Three

After your last class, you head to the gym Komori told you the team practiced in. The coach and the advisor stood by the bench looking over some paperworks. Quietly walking up to them, it was the advisor who noticed you.

“Ah you must be [l/n]!” he says cheerfully. You nodded, holding the paperwork that Komori handed to you after his confrontation with the advisor. “Well Komori-kun sure was passionate about having you as the manager. I hope it’ll be worth while having you here helping us,” he says, taking your papers. As the advisor is getting you familiarized with where everything is, the boys begin to trickle in. They all wore yellow shirts and green shorts. Some chose to wear knee pads while others didn’t. 

Sakusa instantly struck your attention as he walked in, without a mask. Damn, he really was cute but he looked at you with a scowl on his face. Maybe he doesn’t like you at all. 

“Oh yeah Sakusa-san asked me to wash my hands before I touched anything!” you exclaimed and before you leave to wash your hands the advisor stops you.

“He tells everyone to but as much as it bothers him, he forgets once he starts practicing. He tells us all that but it’s too much when you actually start sweating. Just use the bottle of hand sanitizer on the bench you should be good to go,” says the advisor as he rolls out a cart of volleyballs for you to push out. 

Once the team started doing warmups, you greeted the coach. He was a man who’s in his mid-40’s with an average build. “Our team here is pretty good,” he says when you return to the bench. “You’ll find that they’re all capable of handling themselves but with you here they’ll have more time on breaks to rest,” he says as you watch the team begin practicing their serves. 

Komori stood in the middle of the court on the far side. As a libero, he doesn’t participate in serving practice so he uses this time to try and receive the incoming serves. “We have a practice game against Johibi next week so today I would like to have the team’s spikes and combinations in place.” the coach informs you. He also tells you to take note of which players have been doing really well with these new combinations. After the coach tells you everything he wants you to do during the practice he calls the team in. Once they gathered around, he introduces you. “This is [l/n] [f/n], she’ll be our manager."

“Nice to meet you all,” you bow. The boys seemed excited to have a new manager. Sakusa however, seemed unfazed about this whole thing. 

“Now let’s get started on spiking practice. [l/n]-san, bring the volleyball cart with you,” the coach tells you and you went and got it. 

Practice at Itachiyama is very similar to how it went at your old school. You could definitely tell that the players on this team were all of national calibre and no one seemed to fall short. What you definitely noticed to your dismay, is how your eyes always seemed to trail to Sakusa, whether you liked it or not. 

By the time practice ended, the sun had set and the sky was dark. You cleaned the water bottles and threw the towels in the wash. Amidst cleaning about half of the water bottles, someone entered the laundry room. 

“I don’t understand why we need a manager.” You turned around to see Sakusa changed and a mask on. He was wearing a black and white tracksuit and his hands were stuffed in the jacket’s pocket. “We were fine without one. Are you here just to get my number? Or are you here for another member? Maybe you’re here for bragging rights?” asks Sakusa as he drilled these questions into you. You were taken aback, you remember Ishida mentioning that he comes off quite rude and blunt but you weren’t ready for a confrontation such as this.

“Well… I just thought maybe I’ll do the same thing as I did with my old school. I got pretty familiar with volleyball and thought it was fun so I thought about trying it here,” you say, rinsing the soap out of the water bottle before placing it on a drying rack. 

Sakusa scowls again. He walks closer towards you and grabs a water bottle and starts to clean it. “Don’t think I’m helping you. You’re just not cleaning them properly so I have to redo them,” he says as he twists off the top of the water bottle.

“Sorry, I’ll make sure these are spotless,” you say, scrubbing a little harder in order to get whatever dirt was on it off. The two of you were quiet, cleaning the water bottles without a word exchanged. You were honestly hoping that he would say something but he didn’t. You wanted to say something as well but didn’t know what to say. This guy has said nothing but negative things about you being their manager and at this point you were really thinking of quitting.

“There you guys are!” you hear Komori as he pops into the laundry room. “I was wondering where you guys were. Sakusa, stop leaving me behind to clean up the club room,” Komori complains as he sets his bag down by the door.

“The club room was getting dirtier by the minute and it was making me dizzy,” Sakusa says cleaning the last bottle.

“[l/n]-san, how was practice today? Was it okay?” Komori asks, crouching down to sit on the floor without getting his pants dirty. 

“It was fine. You guys do drills that I’m familiar with so it was easy to help out with,” you smile, shaking your hands to get rid of excess water. Drying your hand, you go to the washing machine and start to take out the wet towels so they can be hung to dry overnight. 

“And Sakusa? How is he treating you?” 

“I don’t know, he doesn’t seem to like me,”

“It’s not that I don’t like her. I just don’t see why we need a manager,” Sakusa interjects. He rubs his hands dry and applies some hand sanitizer to further cleanse his hands.

“It’s okay, if you guys really don’t need a manager I can quit and go find another club to join,” you say, trying to lighten up the mood. Or just yours. You actually didn’t want to quit and go find another club. Just the thought of it makes you nervous because you’ll definitely stick out for not knowing where to go or what to do. You hated feeling like that. 

“Don’t listen to Sakusa, he’s just a bit negative about it. The other guys seemed to be fine with you around. They like that they’re actually able to take a bit of a breather instead of running around and filling up their water bottle,” Komori explains trying to make you feel better. 

“I guess I’ll be sticking around then,” you chuckle, walking towards Komori and grabbing your bag. “I’m heading to the dorms,” you announce and Komori stands.

“We’ll walk you there. We stay in the same building anyways,” Komori offers. Sakusa frowns beneath his mask.

“We?” he questions.

“Yeah. I mean we're roommates and I think you’ll be more mad at me when I enter the room and you’re already asleep.” Sakusa says nothing.

“Well lead the way [l/n]-san” Komori says and you guys leave the laundry room, locking it up after you close it. 

Komori was talking to you about school and some of the personal aspects of his life. He’s really fun to talk to and is great at holding a conversation. He really seems to know what to say even in the awkward times. Sakusa on the other hand, didn’t say anything. He stays silent throughout the conversation and doesn’t put any effort into joining the conversation either. Instead, he stayed behind you and Komori as if he’s trying to disassociate himself from both you and Komori. It’s too bad as you were hoping to know him a little better. 

The three of you reach the double staircase that led up to the dorm rooms. “I guess this is where we part,” you say as you guys are climbing the stairs. Komori yawns but nods.

“Yup! We’ll see you tomorrow morning then, right Sakusa?” Komori says.

“I guess,” Sakusa responds, speaking for the first time since exiting the laundry room. Bidding each other good night, you all head your separate ways. Well, Komori and Sakusa went the same way since they were roommates. 


	4. Chapter Four

The next three weeks went really well. You got familiarized with the school, dorms and some of the people in your class. However, some were quite bitter about you getting the position of manager for the boys volleyball team. No one explicitly came to you about it yet but eavesdropping in a quiet hallway is quite easy.

You became really close to Ishida, Kimura and Komori. Ishida seemed to like the idea of you sitting next to Komori as that allowed her to freely chat with him. Though she still was a blushing mess. 

“[l/n] can I borrow your notebooks next week? I have a judo tournament and I’ll be out of class,” Kimura asks as she chows down on a rice ball.

“Yeah sure, just text me when you need them,” you accept handing her your phone so that she could enter her number into your phone. 

“You should come watch! It’ll be so much fun!” Kimura suggests. She looks over at Ishida before looking at Komori. “Ishida will be watching so you should come too Komori,” Kimura says, lowkey hinting at Komori to join her friend.

“I’d love to except we have a lot of practice matches with some college teams over the next couple of days so I don’t think [l/n]-san or I could come watch. I’m so sorry I really want to come watch though. Ishida-san do you think you could videotape me some of the matches and send them to me?” Komori asks and Ishida nods and asks for his phone number so that she could send them to him. You looked over at Kimura and grinned.

“That’s one step closer” Kimura whispered into your ear.

“Are we sharing secrets?” Komori asks you and Kimura as he hands Ishida her phone back. 

Kimura shakes her head. “I was telling [l/n] how cute you two would be together!” she says gleefully and you look over at her in a panic. Isn’t she not supposed to sell her best friend out? Instead Ishida blushes bright red and looks away. Komori also blushes but is a lot more subtle. 

Practice today was cancelled due to the coach catching a fever and the advisor had a meeting to attend. A couple of boys stayed to practice before the captain sent everyone back to the dorms. So that leaves you bored in your room with your English assignment that Anderson-sensei assigned today. You had to write an essay in English about something you find interesting. You remember Komori mentioning he was going to volleyball but you don’t know what you should write about. Ishida is currently out at a track meet so you had the room all to yourself. Looking at your phone you decide to text Komori since you know he probably isn’t busy. 

‘I don’t know what to do for the English assignment’ to send to him. You got his number on your second day of classes as he suggested it’ll be easy for him to locate you in case the team was leaving and you weren’t to be found or vice versa. 

‘Well I told you what I was doing. Maybe you could do something you like’ he responds back after a couple of minutes. 

‘I’m not really into anything though…’ 

‘What about something you don’t like? You could write about something like that’

‘I don’t know :(((‘

‘Well why don’t you come over to our room. Ishida said that she has a track meet today so she’s not there?’ You look at your phone. Would Ishida be okay if you went to her crush’s room? 

‘Idk, would Sakusa be okay with that?’ You asked about Sakusa since he still doesn’t seem to be fond of you. He still more or less glares are you so you’re more than convinced that he really doesn’t like you.

‘Yeah, yeah. He doesn’t hate you so it should be fine.’ Komori texts back and along with it, his room number. You gather up your notebook and a couple of pencils and head over to his room.

As you’re walking over, it feels somewhat illegal walking through the boys hall. You remember the principal saying that it’s not a good idea to go to the opposite sex’s room as it could lead to bad ideas from the other students. 

It took you a while to find the room but when you did you felt a little nervous. What were you thinking when you agreed to go to a boy’s room?! Were you crazy?! Despite all that you knocked. No one answered the door so you knocked again. He has to be there if he asked you to go over. Then you hear the door knob being fumbled with. Shoot what if you were at the wrong door? 

Then the door opened to Sakusa who was wearing a large black sweater with grey sweats and no mask. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks, clearly not pleased with your sudden appearance.

“Komori asked me to come over to help me with our English assignment,” you explain, practically holding your breath that Sakusa doesn’t chew you out on the spot. It’s already awkward enough to go to a guy’s room but especially when Sakusa opens the door and there was no sign of Komori. 

“The essay about something you find interesting?” Sakusa inquires to which you nod. Sighing, he opens the door for you to enter the room. Closing the door behind you, he tosses you a pair of hotel slippers and tells you to take off your shoes to which you politely oblige. 

Their room was extremely clean and neat. You could practically smell the windex in the room. Both of the desks were spotless with nothing on top. Their beds were also properly made with no wrinkles in the covers. You alway imagined a boy’s room to be messy and disorderly but with Sakusa, you supposed that the room is going to be really clean. 

“Komori just headed out to take a shower so you can sit at his desk by the window,” Sakusa informs before sitting on his bed and pulling out his phone to watch something. 

“Thanks,” you say, taking a seat at Komori’s desk. You open your notebook and continue to brainstorm for ideas. You could write about figure skating, you really did like it. Though a mindset in your mind kept telling you that you weren’t cut out for the sport set you back. You really wanted to get your axel, you even imagined yourself achieving a couple of double jumps. But you were scared to jump and so you stuck with the technical aspects, never really advancing. It was people like Sakusa and Komori who got you jealous. Being well known as nationally one of the best strikes a small match of fury within you. But watching them practice, you could tell they did love the sport more than anything. 

Roughly half an hour passed and Komori was still not back. It has been increasingly more awkward being in the same room as Sakusa. It was like he was slowly burning holes into your back. Any small move will make him tick off and kick you out. Unless… you left first. 

Standing up, you grabbed your stuff. Sakusa looked up from his bed.

“You’re leaving?” he asks.

“Yeah, there’s no point of being here if the person tells you to go over isn’t even here,” you explain.

“Did you think of a topic to write about?”

“I thought of a couple but I don’t know if I’ll do them.” Sakusa pulls the earbuds out of his ears and places his phone down. From where you were sitting, you could tell he was watching a volleyball match. 

“Let me see,” he says, sitting down in his chair. Embarrassed, you shook your head. 

“They’re not very good ideas,” you try to reason with him but he doesn't seem to be persuaded. Sighing you open your notebook and show it to him.

“You like figure skating?” he questions. And you nodded.

“I used to do it,” you explain, not looking at him. 

“Why did you quit?” 

“I didn’t have time for it,”  _ and I didnt think I was good enough _ . You didn’t add the last part as it seemed unnecessary. 

Sakusa continues to ask you about figure skating to which you answered. He seems slightly interested in your history with figure skating but he never pushed you too far into the topic.

“What are you doing for the essay?” you ask him,

“I’m going to write about the evolution of sports,” he says. You were slightly shocked but not too surprised. Sakusa was an athlete of course so sports would be a reasonable choice. 

You and Sakusa talked some more, which you were totally not expecting. 

“Hey, I heard from Komori that I upset you,” he says quietly. “I just wanted to apologize if I made you feel bad about yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“The things I said about not needing a manager.” He looks like a child who didn’t want to admit to breaking the glass cup and now his mother was scolding him. “But, I still stand by what I said before.” 

'Then why are you apologizing?!' You wanted to scream. 

“But you haven’t been annoying and are kind of helpful. Even though you don’t clean the water bottles well enough,” he says, but you smile a little. “I don't intend to hurt your feelings. I just say how things are. I’m just being a realist.”

“Don’t worry about it. You apologized so that’s good enough. So I hope we can be friends after this,” you say, a little hopeful. 

“Maybe.”


	5. Chapter Five

It wasn’t until around dinner time that Komori decided to come back to his dorm. By then you’ve already planned out your arguments and thesis with the help of Sakusa who convinced you to write about figure skating. 

“Sorry [l/n]-san! I ran into Ishida on my way to the bathrooms and we ended up talking for hours that I completely forgot you were coming over,” Komori smiled sheepishly as he threw his dirty clothes into the laundry hamper in his closet. 

“No worries. Sakusa helped me instead,” you say. Sakusa was at his desk, completing some math homework. From the looks of it, it seems like he was doing some trigonometry word problems. He didn’t say a word about anything and instead continued to write out solutions for his questions. 

Packing up your things you figured you stayed long enough and frankly, staying over at someone’s room is fun but overstaying your welcome isn’t what you intend to do. Bidding the boys good night you return to your room with Ishida tapping away at her screen.

“Who’s got your eyes glued to the screen?” you tease as you lay on your bed.

“Take a guess,” Ishida sings out, continuing to text whoever it was. 

“Kimura?” 

“Nope!” 

“Komori?” Ishida squeals in delight and runs over to you. 

“I bumped into him when I was going to the bathroom and we talked for hours! Oh my god I don’t think I’ve been able to talk to him like that ever! I told him that I’m racing next week and he said he has time to come. I’m so happy right now,” Ishida laughs as she tackles you.

“Yeah I heard,” you said and Ishida sits back up, wiping away tears from her eyes from laughing. “He told me when he came back to his room.”

“You were in his room?” Ishida asks in disbelief. 

“He asked me to go over since I couldn’t pick out a topic for that English essay but when I got there apparently he went to go take a shower. So when I got there, only Sakusa was there and so Sakusa and I kind of hung out while I waited. He helped me pick out a topic but other than that it was so awkward,” you explain realizing what she’s getting at. 

“Oh so only Sakusa was there,” Ishida said nodding her head. 

“I’m not interested in Komori if that’s what you’re wondering. I think he’s fun to be around but I don’t see him the way you do,” you tell her, trying to reassure her. Besides, Sakusa is really cute and in terms of looks, he stands out so much more. 

“Hm, no I get it,” Ishida says standing up. It was quiet for a while before she whips around with a huge grin. “But you can’t tell me you don’t like Sakusa though.”

Your face flushes immediately. “I just think he’s cute. I don’t have any feelings towards him, besides I don’t think he wants to get into a relationship,” you ramble, trying to justify yourself. Who were you kidding, you know you see him in some sort of way but you just don’t want to come to terms with it. Sakusa has been telling you that the team doesn’t need a manager and he hasn’t been very friendly to you. Except today.

“I know you’re lying,” Ishida says. “The whole school has a crush on him,” she explains. Well there goes your already slim chance of getting with him if you do decide that you actually like him. “Since you’re new and you’re not in his class, I'll tell you that a lot of girls go to the boys volleyball game just to see him. And it’s absolutely ridiculous how many love letters he gets or how many people talk about him. Don't get me started on what happens on Valentine's day.” You nod along, not knowing what you should say to respond to that.

“Ayame actually had a crush on him too but decided she needed to focus on judo and just like that she fell out of love with him. But other girls, the moment they heard you became manager they were furious. Everyone wanted that spot but the team kept denying saying that they didn’t need a manager. If it wasn’t for Komori, you wouldn’t have gotten the spot,” Ishida says, explaining the whole situation.

“So in short Sakusa is a chick magnet and everyone hates me because I got the manager position?” You reiterate. Ishida laughs.

“Yes for Sakusa, and kind of for you. Not everyone hates you, they’re more or less jealous but they’re too shy to act on anything. They won’t bother you. At least I don't think they would.” Maybe liking Sakusa isn’t a good idea. Ishida walks over to her closet and opens it. “Should I ask Komori if he wants to hang out this weekend or is it too soon to ask?” Ishida shuffles through her closet, looking at potential outfits.

“Maybe text him more often and talk to him more. Who knows, you might be able to ask him on Friday if he wants to. From what I know, we don’t have practice Sunday and nothing should be planned that day,” you tell her laying down on your bed. Closing your eyes, you place your arm across your forehead. 

“Am I too obvious?” Ishida asks out of the blue. 

“About what?” 

“Liking Komori.” She sounds hesitant. 

“Yeah totally. Your face turns bright red every time you talk to him,” you say with no emotion. Or rather trying to rid of all the emotion in your voice.

“Really? Am I that obvious?” Ishida sounds concerned.

You sigh. “Well you do blush a lot when he’s around but I don’t think he notices.” 

“You better not be lying,”

“Yeah whatever I’m going to eat dinner. So come with me or else I'll tell Komori that you have the biggest crush on him.”


	6. Chapter Six

Today is the first of the four practice matches that the team has scheduled for the next two weeks. The boys were excited, playing against a local college as no other team in the prefecture was good enough to pose a challenge against Itachiyama. The team was last year’s national champions. 

Your team in red pinnies and the college team in green pinnies, the starting six stood on the court allowing the college student acting as ref today to take note of their numbers. This is your second practice match with the team and with the tournament coming up soon, the coach wants the boys to have some matches in before then. 

The whistle blew signalling the start of the game with the college team serving. The team had a couple of Itachiyama alumni so some of the third years were familiar with them. Their captain and setter, Takara Yori, stood behind the end line, ready to serve. Komori, Itachiyama’s captain and Sakusa stood at the rear end ready to receive. The ref blew the whistle and Takara threw the ball up in the air in one swift motion.

‘He serves right at the whistle, that’s nasty,’ you thought to yourself as Takara takes the run up and serves. The ball rips through the air at such a velocity that the boys on your team didn’t even move when the ball landed on their side of the court. Sakusa and the captain look at the spot where the ball landed between them. On the other side of the court, the college team cheered for Takara with his successful service ace. 

“Don’t mind! We’ll pick it up!” Komori cheers trying to lighten up the tight tension in the air. From where you were sitting, you could tell he was nervous to touch that serve due to it’s force. 

The whistle blew and just like the first serve, Takara wastes no time to serve. With the same speed, it flies over. This time it heads straight for Sakusa who manages to receive it high up in the air. The setter positions himself right under the ball and sets it quickly to Sakusa who performed a back row attack. Three blockers stand in front of Sakusa who plows through all three with a block out. Their captain, the guy who had just served, runs and tries to keep the ball up in the air but falls short as the ball falls out of bounds just out of his reach. 

A collection of squeals can be heard behind your head. Turning around, you look up at the stands to see a group of girls watching the game. A couple you noticed were in your class. Paying them no mind, you flip the score card for your team leaving them at a 1 - 1 tie. Komori switches out with his respective middle blocker for him to serve. 

The serve that middle blocker performs is a jump floater. Compared to the college team’s server, the middle blocker’s serve is much more lighter. It floats through the air with a slight wobble and to the dismay of the college team’s libero, the ball ricochets off his fingertips and lands out of bound. 

It takes the college team a while to get the hang of the middle blocker’s serve but on their fourth attempt they succeed. Itachiyama’s blockers in the front stands ready to block while the back row shuffles themselves around ready to receive any type of attack the college team has. 

A tall and rather buff player on the college team comes into the run up, Itachiyama’s blockers already standing in front, ready to jump. He jumps and the ball flies straight to his spiking arm. Spiking it promptly, it slams right through Itachiyama’s blockers as a straight line shot and the middle blocker is barely able to touch it. This put an end to the middle blocker’s streak of jump floaters that racked up the points. 

The first set ended in a loss to Itachiyama by not too much. They fought it out to 28-30 in the college team’s favour. You headed over to your team while the coach was giving them a word of advice. The six who were playing plus Komori were sitting on the bench, replenishing your energy. The boys handed you their empty water bottles as the team was given ten minutes to re-energize before the next match. Usually in an official game, no matter how tired they are they would have to play five minutes later. 

You extend your hand out for Sakusa to give you his water bottle to be refilled but he shakes his head. Tilting his head back, he finishes the rest of the water. 

“I’ll refill it myself,” he says as he stands up. Sakusa brings his own water bottle due to the germs that are apparently within the other water bottles as they’re shared but as Komori put it, if in an official match and his water bottle goes empty, he’d rather drink from the club’s than sit out. 

You and Sakusa walk together towards the water fountain where a hoard of girls stood standing near the door. You expect them to crowd Sakusa, telling him how great of a player he is. Kind of like how girls treat Oikawa Tooru. You saw a video of their game and the amount of fan girls he has is unruly. Sakusa has the same thing here, sort of. 

The girls open a pathway to let you and Sakusa through. A girl walks behind you and tap your shoulder. “Um, how did you end up so close to Sakusa-kun?” she asks. You stop and look at her confused.

“We’re not actually that close,” you respond quickly. Sakusa looks behind his shoulder but continues to walk towards the water fountain.

“Then how’d you become manager?” she asks. You look at her nervously, knowing you only have a couple of minutes to fill the water bottles and make it back to the gym. 

“Komori-san helped me since I did it at my old school,” you answer. You noticed that Sakusa is already at the fountain filling up his water bottle. “Sorry, I have to get going,” you apologize, walking quickly to join Sakusa by the water fountain. When you get there, Sakusa is done with the fountain and you begin to fill up the water bottles in your hands.

“You don’t have to answer them,” Sakusa says. He’s looking at the ground, screwing the lid of his water bottle back onto the container. “They’re just jealous that they got denied the position and you didn’t.”

“Why didn’t you accept one of them.” You finish filling up the water bottle and place it on the side. 

“Well, if they don’t know a lot of volleyball in the first place.”

“You could teach them.”

“I’d rather not. Besides, even if they did know the rules of volleyball, teaching them the manager role will be a hassle and they’ll be more useless than they would be useful.”

“But once you show them how, they’ll be helpful.”

“Until they have their germs all over my things. I don’t care if they touch the club’s things but with my things they can’t touch. Their germs will send me to an early grave.” You chuckle at him, filling up the last water bottle. 

“You don’t seem to enjoy the presence of bacteria much,” you said, picking up the four water bottles you came with. Sakusa walks in front with you lagging behind. 

Sakusa doesn’t say anything to you for the rest of the day. The boys won their set right after the break. They won quite often against the college team who only won four out of the ten sets they played. Itachiyama tried out many of their new plays and tweaked them so that it worked the majority of the time. The benched players also got their play time, improving by a staggering amount that you were secretly proud of them. Sakusa sat out for two of the sets in order to let the bench players play. You wanted to talk to him. About the game, about volleyball, about anything really. You wanted to get to know him better but you couldn’t bring yourself to say anything. 


	7. Chapter Seven

It’s official. Ishida is full on flirting with Komori. Not only on text, but in person too. They’re usually banters like married couples but you’re done with being caught in the middle of it.

Today, Komori seems to be taking residence in your dorm room. Ishida has the day off and it’s a Sunday so no practice for the volleyball team. You were peacefully watching a movie on your bed while Ishida and Komori are working on math. Well they’re supposed to be, that’s what Ishida invited him over for. But it ends up with a pick up line competition. 

They’ve been like that for the past half hour and what makes you irritated is that no matter the volume of your movie, you seem to be able to hear them through your earbuds. 

“Alright guys I’ve heard enough. Komori I’m going to your room for some peace and quiet,” you say as you sit up, getting ready to leave the love infested room. 

“Oh okay. Sakusa is there so he’ll let you in. If he doesn’t then I’ll call him to let you in,” Komori says. You thank him and leave the room. 

You haven’t been to Komori’s room ever since that time you were in there to brainstorm for your English assignment. Thanks to Sakusa’s persuasion, you did write the essay on figure skating and was given an 83% back on it. Not bad considering you weren’t great with English grammar. 

As weird as it sounds, you've been thinking about Sakusa a lot these past couple of weeks. More so about how you feel about him. He isn’t the nicest person to have ever existed but he is good looking. But, there’s also a lot of girls who think he’s good looking too. A lot of them are really pretty too. Does he see anyone romantically? Would he see you romantically? 

You hold your laptop to your chest. You can’t deny that you might see Sakusa romantically but would he reciprocate your feelings? If not in the near future, then would he ever? Does he think you’re attractive? Does he like your personality? You’re unsure, more so now as you stand in front of his dorm room’s door. It wouldn’t be too late to turn back now. You could always watch your movie in the common room. 

But your desire to see him overwhelms you and you knock on the door. Immediate regret washes over you. If you run now, you don’t have to come face to face with him. As you were wallowing over your regret, Sakusa opened the door. 

“What are you doing here?” Straight to the point. No greeting, just asking what you were doing at his door. 

“Komori and Ishida are openly flirting in my room and I can’t watch my movie.” You can feel your face blushing red as the conversation carries on. Why are you like this around him? Literally, if you didn’t think about how you feel about him before you came over then you wouldn’t be like this. 

“Ew.” Ew? That’s it? That’s all he says? 

“So can I come over? I don’t think you’ll be flirting with someone,” you ask nervously.

“What if I was?” he inquires. What if indeed! What if he actually has a girlfriend and didn’t tell anyone. Komori didn’t mention him talking with anyone. 

“You have a girlfriend?” you ask, trying to mask your hurt. 

“No. But you can’t just assume things about me.” He says as he frowns at you. God it was cute. Him in his white t-shirt and black sweatpants, it was more than enough to blush but his facial expression. The way his eyebrows scrunched together and the ends of his mouth pulled down, it was cute. What would it be like to kiss him? 

“Oh, you’re right. But um, can I, can I come over? I want to um, watch my, uh, movie. Without people on the verge of melting, I mean, making out.” Why oh why are you stuttering? You‘re going to completely reveal to him that you might potentially have a crush on him. “Or not haha. You don’t have to agree, I can just go watch my movie somewhere else. Where it uh, doesn’t bother you. Because you might be busy and I’ll just be a bother to you. I’m probably bothering you. Sorry I’ll leave. I’m sorry for taking up your time.” And you turn on your heel to leave. 

Were you insane?! You were literally just begging him to let you in and now you’ve done a complete 180 and started to walk away. Were you really going to let this opportunity slip away? To be in a room with just him? How many girls would die to be in this position that you’re in? Probably not a lot because that’d be weird. 

With all of your internal rambling, you must’ve missed Sakusa calling you back. He grabs onto your wrist to stop you.

“I didn’t say you couldn’t come over. Stop deciding things on your own.” He lets go of you and leaves the door open for you to enter. You enter the room and it looks the same as it did when you were there about a month ago. Only difference is that Komori’s bag is on his chair as he came to your room right after lunch. Sakusa’s desk has a couple of notebooks on his desk. He must’ve been doing some homework before you came. 

“You can sit at my desk. I don’t want to touch Komori’s things,” he says as he rubs hand sanitizer onto his hands. It must’ve been when he touched you. 

“Okay thanks,” you say, your face still hot from your conversation at the door. Sakusa moves his notebooks off his desk and into his bag. He motions you to sit on the chair and you do as he opens his closet to put his bag in. 

“Would you like to watch with me?” you ask. Sakusa hums in response as you open Netflix on your laptop. You were a quarter way through watching the movie before you left the room. You sit there nervously for his answer. 

“Sure.” You’re shocked, to say the least.

“Great. Anything you’d like to watch?” 

“Anything other than horror.” Was Sakusa scared of horror movies?

“Why? Do you get scared easily?” you ask teasingly as you await his answer. This little piece of information could be the more useless trivia you’d know about him but how many people would know about this?

“No the blood and gore are disgusting. It makes me want to throw up,” he responds with a sour face. Oh, that’d make sense.

“Okay well how about action?” you ask him as he shrugs claiming it's not any better than horror but the plot line and characters are more tolerable. You scroll through the movie options with him looming over your back, looking at the movie list too. You notice an old Captain America movie and an idea springs into your head. “Do you want to have a Marvel movie marathon? We can start with the oldest movie and make our way up to the most recent movie,” you suggest. 

“Yeah that can work. I don’t know about the marathon but we can definitely watch some Marvel movies.” You search up the oldest movie in the Marvel Universe; Captain America: The First Avenger. Just when you’re about to hit play, you remember that Sakusa is still standing.

“Would you like to sit? I know this is your room but I’d hate for you to stand and watch during the whole movie,” you tell him. Sakusa looks around his room, looking somewhere to sit. Sighing, he grabs a towel and uses it to pick up Komori’s bag and move the chair closer to your laptop. Once he settled in, you click play, allowing the movie to begin.


	8. Chapter Eight

You have no idea when you fell asleep. Well, you do have some sort of an idea but you didn’t know when exactly. You remember watching partway through Iron Man before you fell asleep. Sakusa fell asleep too as his head rests on his arms as he’s leaning on the table. 

It was Komori that shook you awake. “Hey, it’s time for dinner. I tried calling you but you didn’t pick up. I guess this is why,” Komori whispers. You check the time to see it was already 7:00PM, but you had no appetite to eat. You glanced at your laptop to see that it had died. It’s still slightly warm so it must’ve died not too long ago. 

Komori is now shaking Sakusa awake, who lifts his head up sleepily. 

“Hey Sakusa. It’s time to eat dinner. Rin-chan and Kimura-san are waiting for us by the common room,” Komori says.

“Rin-chan?” you asked, slightly shocked but the sleepiness is still present. 

“Yeah, she asked me to call her Rin. She calls me Motoya now too.”

“What, are you guys dating or something?” 

“No but I don’t think I’d mind dating her. She’s fun to be around.” Komori says that without a stutter. His cheeks are slightly rosy but otherwise if you weren’t paying attention you would’ve missed it. 

Sakusa groans as he stands up and stretches. He rummaged through his closet before pulling a red windbreaker on. He then proceeds to throw to you a blue hoodie. 

“Put it on. The cafeteria always has A.C on and we’ve just woken up. I don’t need you catching the flu and potentially getting us all sick,” he says as Komori snickers to himself. 

“Thanks. I’ll have it washed and returned to you by tomorrow,” you said, putting on the blue sweater. It was two sizes too big for you. The bottom of the hoodie reaches your knees and your hands were lost somewhere in the sleeve. You took a deep breath and the smell of laundry detergent wafts up your nose. This is Sakusa’s sweater you think and you immediately blush. 

“I’ll come to pick it up from you tomorrow at practice,” Sakusa says as he puts on a mask and leaves the dorm room with you and Komori trailing behind. 

As you were walking towards the common room, all you could think about was how you were wearing Sakusa’s sweater. He wouldn’t let you touch any of his things, even his water bottle to which you were going to wash but he willingly let you wear his sweater. Well, it was for the sake of not getting sick but it’s still something you couldn’t process. 

“You have drool at the side of your mouth,” Komori whispers into your ear and you flinch. Quickly taking out your phone you open the camera app to see your face. True to his words, a line of dried up drool was at the side of your mouth. Not cute. 

“Thanks,” you mumble as you wipe away your drool, careful not to get it on Sakusa’s sweater. 

“You like him don’t you,” Komori grins. 

“What do you mean?” You know what he’s getting at, but you don’t want to admit it. Not yet anyways.

“Don’t you think I’m aware of how much you look at him at practice? Or how much you talk about him? You’re practically obsessed. You have a crush on him.”

“Crush on who?” 

“Sakusa. Who else?” There it was. You’re now stuck in the dilemma of telling Komori the truth or lying about it. 

“No I don’t have a crush on him.” You opted to lie. 

“Mm, okay.” And Komori thankfully drops the topic. 

Ishida and Kimura are waiting in the common room when you, Komori and Sakusa arrive. Kimura cheerfully greets Sakusa and Komori while slinging an arm around your shoulder. 

“So, I heard you and Sakusa were in a room together. Tell me, how did it go?” Kimura asks. Her smile is mischievous and you know there’s going to be some teasing that’ll accompany her next statement. 

“Yeah, we watched a movie,” you tell her, trying to be as discreet with the details as possible.

“And is that his sweater?” Kimura tugs at the sleeve of the hoodie you’re wearing.

“Yeah,” you say before Ishida tells the both of you to hurry up or else all the food will be gone. 

The cafeteria was pretty empty when you got there so finding a seat was quite easy. You all grabbed a tray and formed a line to get some food. Today there was steamed rice, tamagoyaki, spicy curry and some mackerel. You got a small serving of rice with tamagoyaki and mackerel. Still being sleepy, you didn’t want to eat anything spicy. 

At the table, you sat next to Ishida who was sitting between you and Kimura. Sakusa and Komori were sitting on the other side. “That’s all you’re going to eat guys?” Kimura exclaims in disbelief as she looks at both of your and Sakusa’s tray. Sakusa doesn’t seem to be a big eater as he just has a small plate of rice with curry. 

“I just woke up so I’m not feeling that hungry,” you say, digging into your rice. 

“I’m not hungry.” That’s all Sakusa says as he lowers his mask.

“You’re never hungry. I don’t know where you even get your energy from,” sighs Komori who has a tray with the amount of food that rivals Kimura. Athletes need a lot of food you suppose. 

Dinner was all idle chatter mainly between Ishida and Komori. You and Kimura added comments here and there but Ishida and Komori were completely engrossed in their own conversation.

“Do you remember which movie we ended up at?” you ask Sakusa who’s nearly done his meal.

“I think it was Iron Man 2,” he responds.

“Okay, I remember we started Iron Man but I think I fell asleep sometime then.”

“Yeah, I saw you dozing off. I paused the movie and let you sleep. I guess I fell asleep then too.” You inwardly wish you saw his face when he slept. Seeing his face relaxed would definitely be a cute sight and a good change from his usual scowl. Though it was nice of him to pause the movie when you fell asleep, but you also felt guilty for making him do so. 

“Would you like to continue watching the movies another day?” You ask him. Please say yes, please say yes. You really would like to spend some time with him. 

“Yeah I’d like that,” Sakusa says as he stands up with his tray. His plate was completely clean and his spoon was neatly placed on the side. “I’m going to take a shower.”

You and the others bid him a good night. It wasn’t until Sakusa completely left that Komori, Ishida and Kimura started to bombard you with questions. 

“You’re lying about not liking him,” Komori laughs. “You basically had hearts in your eyes.”

“You were practically begging him to watch another movie with you,” Kimura laughs along with Komori. 

“Guys, I don’t see Sakusa that way. He’s just a friend I swear,” you tried to convince them. They weren’t wrong though, you just didn’t think you stood a chance with him. So many girls like him so what chance do you have? But, you still have feelings. Small, itty bitty feelings for him. Not significant enough to tell him or anyone. You’ll get over him sooner or later. Right?

“Yeah you’re totally not into him. Just like how a month ago you called him cute and literally ate up whatever I told you about him,” Ishida smirks. 

“What did you tell me about him? Also, why can’t I think someone is cute and not hold feelings for them?” You’re so desperately trying to make them believe that you don’t like Sakusa. In the meanwhile, you’re more and more convinced that you like Sakusa. 

“Well at practice, you’re always looking at him,” Komori says, taking the final bite of rice. 

“You should be practicing. How would you know that I look at him. Or at all even?” 

“[l/n]-san, I play libero so I’m off whenever someone is serving. Every time I look at you, you’re staring at Sakusa.”

“Why are you looking at me in the first place?” 

“You were doing the score! If I look at the score I see you too.” Komori is full-blown laughing. 

“Fess up, [l/n]-chan, you like Sakusa don’t you?” Ishida says, raising an eyebrow while smirking at you. Well you have two options: either continue to lie and hope they drop it or tell them that you actually might have feelings for Sakusa. Your silence isn’t going to convince them that you don’t like Sakusa and the fact your face is beginning to turn redder by the minute isn’t helping either.

“Fine! Yes I like him. But you can’t tell anyone!” You give in, giving the other three a stern look to emphasize that you don’t want the whole school to know. Especially Sakusa.

The other three grin like a mad man. “About time. Now tell us why won’t you tell us you liked him the first time? You’re really obvious.” Ishida says. 

Should you tell them? You’d be telling them all about your insecurities and how Sakusa will never like you.

“Damn am I really?” You respond half-heartedly. “Well I guess I didn’t want to tell you guys because I feel that it’ll just confirm my crush on him even when I want to get rid of it.”

“Get rid of your crush on Sakusa?” Komori questions.

“Yeah, I mean so many girls like him and would love to be in my position. Other than having more opportunities to talk to him, we don’t really click that well. Like I want to talk to him but I don’t know what to say to him and he doesn’t say much either. Besides, there’s so many girls that are prettier than me so he’ll probably like them more. And my personality is pretty bland, kind of like flour as a spice.” You don’t know why you said so much. Maybe you’re just seeking some encouragement from them.

“As far as I can tell, you might be the only girl that Sakusa is fine with. He doesn’t really mention girls often anyways but if you ask him he’ll answer. I don’t know, I just know he hates it when girls crowd him after a game though.” Komori is probably the person who knows Sakusa the best. He was teammates and roommates with Sakusa after all. 

“Yeah, don’t give up on him yet. And if anyone has a problem with you then they’ll have to answer to the captain of the judo team!” Kimura announces proudly. 

“Thanks guys. Though I don’t know what difference it makes for me to admit that I like Sakusa though,” you say.

“It makes all the difference!” Ishida says flabbergasted. 

“Yeah! Because we’ll make you two go on a date!” Komori says excitedly. 

“And how are we going to pull that off?” you ask, doubtful that this was going to go the way they imagined.

“We can do a hangout and we’ll let you and Sakusa be together,” Komori says. 

“Ah, sorry guys. I have a judo tournament to do soon. So if you’re going to do this next week or something I can’t come,” Kimura says sadly. 

“So then I’ll just frame it as a double date,” Komori suggests. A double date, with Komori and Ishida? Now, even though he’s trying to help you, you don’t want to pass up the opportunity for Ishida and Komori to go on a date. Maybe this will make them get together. After all, they’ve been texting each other a lot more often now. Heck they're practically already dating.

“But how are we going to convince Sakusa? He’s not going to leave the dorm room,” you say realizing a problem in all of this. Even if you, Komori and Ishida agree to go, this all goes down the drain if Sakusa doesn’t go. His germaphobic personality will prevent him from going out. 

“We’ve been out a couple of times to buy volleyball shoes so maybe if it’s for a legitimate reason he’ll go.”

“How about the movies? If we go either early or really late, it should be empty. From what I heard, he likes to watch movies if he’s willing to watch some Marvel movies with [l/n]-san,” says Ishida and you and Komori agree. Even in a busy city such as Tokyo, the movies were quite empty when you go early in the afternoon or really late in the evening especially the ones closer to the outskirts of the city. 

“That sounds like a good idea. And even if Sakusa declines, I could still go and watch a movie anyways,” you agree. 

“Then it’s settled! The movies it is! I’ll try to convince Sakusa to join us. Maybe if I beg him to accompany you who will be sadly third wheeling Rin-chan and I, he’ll give in and come with us.” Komori is all smiles when he looks at Ishida. 

“Why frame it as a date when it can actually be a date? Did you guys tell each other yet?” Kimura asks, promptly reminding everyone she’s still there. 

“What do you mean?” Komori asks and you want to punch him so bad. Ishida practically wears her heart on her sleeves and Komori clearly sees something in her too. You look at Ishida with a look that conveys that she needs to tell him and you get up and leave. 

“I’ll be going to bed. I will see you all at school tomorrow, good night,” you say picking up your tray. 

“Me too. I wanna hit the showers before I drop dead when I go to sleep,” Kimura says standing up to join you. The two of you leave Komori and Ishida there alone together.

“If she doesn’t tell him today, I’ll tell him myself,” Kimura mutters side-eyeing Ishida and Komori who were both quiet at you and Kimura’s sudden announcement to leave. 

“You can say that again,” you agree and Kimura lightly punches you in the side. 

“And you. If you don’t make a move on Sakusa I’m going to announce to the whole school that you have the hots for him,” Kimura threatens.

“Yes ma’am.”


	9. Chapter Nine

All week you were suddenly too aware of your crush on Sakusa. You’d risk glances at him all throughout practice and in class you’re constantly distracted with thoughts of him. Maybe giving into your crush on him to your friends wasn’t a good idea. Apparently, Komori hasn’t asked him about the “double movie date” yet and somehow that gets you more anxious. If only your love life could end up like Komori and Ishida’s. 

By Wednesday, Komori and Ishida announced that they were dating. Saying that you and Kimura ecstatic was the understatement of the century. So the double date was truly going to be like, half a date, half third wheeling. Well you will be if Sakusa doesn’t agree to go. Actuallyf he doesn’t then you’ll just watch a movie by yourself, maybe not the same one as Komori and Ishida to give them space but as lonely as it sounds, you weren’t going to third wheel. 

“Don’t worry [l/n]! I’ll try to convince Sakusa today. But are you free Saturday evening? Rin-chan and I were thinking that we can go Saturday after practice,” Komori suggests as his arm rests leisurely around Ishida’s shoulder. You knew they were going to date sooner or later. Ishida spent so many nights on her phone texting him making the light from her phone impossible for you to fall asleep. Though you never really put it against her so you never said anything about it. 

“Why not now? We’re on our lunch,” Kimura suggests as she’s watching some judo videos, presumably of other schools who might be her opponent.

“Yeah that sounds reasonable, right Motoya?” You’re never going to get used to Ishida calling Komori by his first name. When Komori started calling Ishida by her first name it was weird to you as well but it wasn’t that hard to adjust. 

Komori agrees and the four of you head over to Class Three where Sakusa is. Kimura was still watching the match and being nosy, you looked over. 

“Woah, that’s so cool,” you unintentionally exclaimed. 

“It’s actually not that hard to do once you get the basics mastered. It’s quite amateurish really,” Kimura says nonchalantly. 

“Then you gotta teach me,” you say and Kimura agreed saying she will if she finds time. 

Class Three was fairly rowdy class compared to your class. It seems almost odd that Sakusa’s in it. When you enter, you notice a girl talking to Sakusa. She was obviously engaged in a conversation with him and Sakusa seems to be responding to her with more than just a one worded statement. It made your heart ache in jealousy. He was never like that to you. Maybe your gut was right, he probably doesn’t see you that say. 

You wanted to tell Komori to drop it and you won’t bother asking Sakusa to accompany you to the movies but Komori is pretty much at his desk already. All you want to do is run away and delete your existence. 

Not wanting to hear the conversation, you distanced yourself and just left it to watch their body language instead since you still wanted to know Sakusa’s answer. 

You can tell Sakusa is declining as Komori is visibly begging him. Done with the situation, you walk up to Komori and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Give it a rest, it’s not that big of a deal. Besides it’s awkward if we tagged you and Ishida on your date,” you say, slightly disappointed.

“But we planned this together, we can’t just exclude you just because we’re dating now. And this whole hangout was suggested by you,” Ishida says, lying about the whole situation. You don’t why you feel so mad but you try to get your emotions under control. 

“Just drop it. It’s not that serious anyways,” you say, heart aching at this whole thing. You just wanted to forget about this whole situation. It also doesn’t help that the girl Sakusa was talking to was now smirking at you as if she’s content that Sakusa doesn’t want to hang out with you. Not wanting to deal with it anymore, you leave the class with Ishida and Komori still trying to convince Sakusa despite what you said earlier. Kimura follows you out. 

“What’s your problem? You were so on board with this whole plan and now you’re backing out? It is because you saw him talking with Sakurai?” Kimura spits, clearly pissed at how you reacted. 

“And what if it is?” you retort. Kimura rolls her eyes. 

“Yeah she’s pretty and Sakusa is pretty comfortable with her. But that doesn’t mean he likes her,” Kimura says unconvincingly. You think back at how Sakusa was so open with her.

“It doesn’t matter, I don’t want to be tagging along a couple anyways. I love them both but it just seems wrong,” you said and Kimura agrees with you on that note as she doesn’t like the idea of a double date either. Seeing him talking with the girl, Sakurai, was enough to make you second guess the whole thing and back out of the whole idea. The two of you headed back to your class and waited for Ishida and Komori to return. 

When they do, it’s clear on their faces that they didn’t convince Sakusa. And a couple of months later, news got out that Sakusa and Sakurai were now dating. How wonderful. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehe some drama to make this story more entertaining


	10. Chapter Ten

You’re done with Sakusa, well almost done with him. It started off with Sakurai watching practice from the second floor to watching on the bench beside you. Honestly, you could care less about what she does because it's not your business. On another note, you’ve grown to dislike Sakurai for her attempts to piss you off. You tried, you really did try to accept her but how she has a tendency to take over things and act all innocent and baby-like drives you insane. It’s been approximately two months since she’s been dating Sakusa but every passing hour feels like a moment in hell. 

It started with her sitting on the bench with you which you didn’t really mind. Then it escalated into talking to you about her relationship with Sakusa which you acted like you didn't really care about but secretly did. She bragged that Sakusa held hands with her on their third date and by their eighth he kissed her. You at one point dreamt about him doing those things to you but now they feel like a fever dream that makes you want to hurl at yourself. Then, she took over your role as manager indirectly. She jumped at every job that the advisor and coach gave you and took over. Disappointedly so, the advisor and coach didn’t seem to mind.

“I quit being the manager of the volleyball team,” you told Ishida one night. You were both doing English homework when you told her.

“What?! When?!” Ishida was clearly shocked at the declaration. 

“Just today, though I didn’t tell the team. I just told the advisor and coach in private and they said they’ll break the news tomorrow morning at practice,” you tell her. In reality, you didn’t want to quit the team. You grew to like every member on the team and even had a couple inside jokes with them. It was just Sakurai you couldn't stand. 

“So not even Motoya knows?” You shake your head. There was a moment of silence before Ishida asked you another question. “Is it because of Sakurai? Because she’s dating your crush, well former crush as you’re always glaring at him now.”

“Yes and no. Yes it’s because of Sakurai but not because she’s dating Sakusa. Not directly anyways. She’s always taking over and I just feel pretty useless there now so I decided to quit and actually have time to do something I rather do than listen to her bragging about how her relationship is doing,” you explain as you doodle spirals in your notebook.

"Why didn't you just tell her to leave then?" You heave a big sigh.

"And deal with Sakusa? That's a whole conversation I want to avoid."

“Well it’s going to be a shock to the team and I bet Sakurai will jump at that manager position. What about the training camp they’re going on?” Ishida questions, no longer interested in her homework. 

“Hm, I’m not going I guess,” you say. 

Indeed the team was shocked at your sudden acquittal and Sakurai did immediately apply for the position. You got quite an earful from some of the boys as well for quitting. It felt like freedom when you quit since you’re finally free from the grasps of Sakurai. You haven’t heard from Sakusa since the time Komori and Ishida tried to convince him to go on that movie double date. 

Luckily, Ishida and Komori’s relationship hasn’t faltered in the least which is good. Thank god they’re lowkey with the PDA. But just watching them makes you want to have a boyfriend too especially have absolutely nothing to do now after quitting. What also doesn’t help that you still, after all this time, have lingering feelings for Sakusa. You hate yourself for that. 

Today’s gym class isn’t helping in the slightest. The unit is basketball and the gym teachers decided to merge both Class One and Three together since the two classes shared the class in the same period. What also doesn’t help is how you’re miraculously on the same team as Sakusa and Sakurai when you all pulled lots. At least you had your seatmate on your team. 

“Don’t worry guys, I’ll bring us all to victory!” she cheered excitedly. You heard rumours that she was on the basketball team as a… shooting guard you think. You don’t know much about basketball but you’re assuming that they must be pretty good at getting baskets by throwing the ball from wherever they were.

The game starts and the first team you’re up against is Komori and Kimura’s team. You were secretly planning on sabotaging your own team but your seatmate’s passion for winning made you feel guilty if you were to be the reason the team lost so you tried your best at playing. 

Though at times it did feel as if you were bringing the team down with your poor dribbling and shooting skills but the seatmate (Uchiyama) manages to cover the whole team by scoring some three pointers. Apparently she wasn’t a regular on the team but she is good enough to make you think so. But despite how you feel, you were quite confident that you weren’t the sole person bringing down the team.

Sakusa, due to his germaphobic nature, refused to come into contact with the ball or anyone. He stood in the corner of the court trying to avoid the crowd. Sakurai clinged to his side, also refusing to get into the game. With a three on five game, your team was definitely losing by a landslide despite Uchiyama’s attempts to turn the game around. 

When the ten minute game was done, Uchiyama was definitely upset over the large point gap between the two teams. Taking matters into your own hands you decided to talk to Sakusa and Sakurai. 

“Would it hurt just to try a little?” you asked the couple. Sakusa glares at you and Sakurai copies. 

“What do you mean?” Sakurai says, clearly not getting it.

“Can you guys at least try to play a bit in the game? Uchiyama really wanted us to win and it’s really hard trying to win when two of our players refuse to play. I’m not asking you guys to go and score a lot. I'm just asking for you guys to at least try to play a little,” you elaborate. Sakurai (who only goes off on whatever Sakusa says) looks at Sakusa for his opinion.

“And catch the germs of the other players? I’d die,” he states bluntly. 

“Yeah and if Kiyoomi isn’t doing it then I’m not doing it either,” Sakurai agrees. 

“Sakurai I know for a fact that you don’t mind germs as much as Sakusa-san so can you at least play as some sort of defense for us?” you tried again, knowing that this conversation wasn’t going to go as planned. 

“But Kiyoomi won’t hold hands with me then,” she pouts and you look at Sakurai exasperated. Is she serious? That’s what she’s concerned about? Some team player she is. 

“And it’d kill you if you don’t?” you ask, completely done with them. 

“So? I know that you had feelings for Kiyoomi and you’re only trying to break us up! Well I’m just going to break the news to you that he doesn’t see you that way and he never did,” Sakurai huffs and you just walk away because you needed to resist punching her. Why does bringing up how you feel about Sakusa contribute to the conversation in any way?! All you were asking is for them to be team players but no they're absolutely refusing too? And Sakusa is an athlete! What's the difference between touching the ball between volleyball and basketball?

“Sorry Uchiyama, they won’t play,” you apologized to Uchiyama who was slightly down in the dumps after the horrific loss. 

“It’s alright. You tried your best and if they want to drag the team down then let them,” Uchiyama smiles. Kimura came and decided to join you guys. Komori was currently watching Ishida play right now so Kimura wanted to talk to you and Uchiyama.

“How does it feel to be the losers?” Kimura jokes and Uchiyama’s smile fade. The loss must’ve affected her pride of being on the basketball team. “Sorry Uchi-chan, I only mean it as a joke. We had the advantage anyway,” Kimura says, trying to cheer Uchiyama up. 

“It’s fine, we’ll win the next one!” It was nice to see Uchiyama taking Kimura’s comment lightly. She then looks over at Sakusa and Sakurai who were clearly flirting with each other. “Ugh, their PDA makes me wanna off myself,” she says and you and Kimura laugh.

“You can say that again,” Kimura laughs.

“Sakusa also looks so uncomfortable right now!” Uchiyama adds. And it takes you a moment to realize that he does. His face is scowled and clearly unhappy about Sakurai’s close proximity to him. How much does Sakusa actually like her?

The rest of class resulted in a lot of losses on your team. Sakusa at least tried defending the net if someone has a break through but Sakurai just became his cheerleader which is stupid considering she's supposed to be playing. However, on the happy note, your dribbling has improved during the class that you had at least some control over the ball instead of losing it every third bounce. Komori and Kimura’s team emerged as the overall victors this period though. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol guys i promise this is still a sakusa x reader


	11. Chapter Eleven

After that class, you noticed the increasing fights between Sakusa and Sakurai. It started off small but soon the whole school realized that the relationship was going to fall apart soon. Their personalities were so different and according to some the fights were inevitable. 

“Sakusa’s been complaining about her for the past week,” Komori groans. “All throughout the training camp all I can hear is their fighting and every time Sakusa’s back in the dorm he just talks shit about her.” You never heard Komori curse but he’s clearly upset over the couple’s fight. 

“The boys want you back,” he says. He’s in your dorm room sitting with Ishida on the top bunk. Out of your own safety, you sit at your desk in case the bed breaks. Apparently Sakurai was in his dorm room arguing with Sakusa again. 

“They don’t need me back,” you say.

“They prefer you over Sakurai.” You don’t answer him, there’s no direction in this argument. You no doubt didn’t like Sakurai but somehow through all this time, you couldn’t get rid of your crush on Sakusa. There were times that you would catch yourself wishing he would break up with Sakurai just so you can show him that you’re so much more worth his time. 

“Why doesn’t he break up with her,” you ask. Ishida shakes her head.

“Apparently he tried. A couple of times actually but Sakurai has the tendency to go overboard and you know how Sakusa is. If she does anything to his things he’ll freak out,” Ishida says. 

“Well as long as it doesn’t affect the team and they stop arguing all the damn time I don’t care if he decides to stay with her. I support him but things are just rough at this point.” And you couldn’t agree more with Komori. It’s giving everyone a headache at this point.

Two weeks later it’s official that Sakusa and Sakurai broke up. It appears to be a pretty nasty breakup too. Every day there’s some sort of rumour going on about Sakusa and it’s blatantly clear it’s Sakurai who spreads them. It wasn’t even a miscommunication issue or people were trying to paint her in a bad light, you’ve literally seen her talk about the break up.

“I tried my best to salvage our relationship but Sakusa clearly didn’t know his boundaries. He thinks he’s so cool just because he’s the ace of the volleyball team. Heck I’ve watched him practice and there’s nothing special about him. Top three spikers of the nation my ass! I bet I could receive his spikes without breaking a sweat. He isn’t even affectionate! There’s times I’m feeling my worst and he doesn’t do anything about it even when I do everything for him when he’s feeling his worst!” Sakurai rants to her friends in your class. You’re sitting at your desk with Komori, overhearing Sakurai’s conversation. They weren’t really discreet in the first place. Ishida was currently at another school for a track tournament to which both you and Komori both promised to go watch if she wins into the qualifiers. Kimura isn’t here as she’s trying to finalize things with the Student Council for their upcoming joint practice session with a nearby school

“What is she even talking about? I literally watched their breakup,” Komori says, eyebrows coming closer together. 

“And how was that?” you ask Komori.

“Terrible. For your information, it was Sakusa who told her that he wanted to break up. I swear there was screaming from Sakurai and yelling from Sakusa. I never heard him raise his voice. Then after that Sakurai keeps trying to sabotage him but sometimes she times it wrong and I get hit with whatever she’s trying to do to Sakusa.”

“Man you got it rough.” 

“Komori!” Someone calls out into the class. You turn your head to see Iizuna Tsukasa, the captain of the volleyball team standing by the door of your class thanking the person who called out for Komori. Iizuna walks over to Komori and your desks.

“Oh great [l/n]-san is here too. I’ll get straight to the point. Komori, the coach asked me to ask you to keep up on Sakusa’s condition. Interhigh is coming up and we need him to be at his best and we thought you’re probably the best person to do so. And [l/n]-san, something went wrong with lists so currently you’re still registered as our official manager. If you would like to come back, we would all love that,” Iizuna says.

“I’ll think about it,” you respond.

“Thank you,” Iizuna bows in appreciation before leaving your classroom to head to his own. 

“Please come back to the team,” Komori says once Iizuna left. He then leans into your ear and whispers “I’ll also need help dealing with Sakusa.” Chuckling you promise him that you’ll drop into practice today after school to see if you still want to be on the team as the manager. 

After a gruesome six class day, you go down to the volleyball gym where some boys were already setting up the nets. One of the first years notices you and greets you cheerfully. Entering the gym, you helped them set up the nets and get the balls for them to start practicing serves. 

Soon, all the boys shuffle into the gym, all excited to see you back. You noticed that Sakusa hung back and started serving without talking to you. Well screw him right? 

“Are you coming back to the team?” one of the first years asked you. 

“I don’t know. I’m just here to see if I want to return or not,” you reply with a smile trying to sound as genuine as possible. “Now stop talking to me and go practice your serves!” you laugh pushing some of them to the cart of volleyballs. Like usual, Komori was standing on the court trying to receive some of the oncoming balls. He appears to be quite successful.

“Why are you here?” You turn around and see Sakusa using a towel to rub some sweat off his face. Even after all these months, no matter how many times you told yourself that you don’t have feelings for him, the further you feel from the truth. He’s single now and ever since his break up, you’ve been quite selfish thinking that maybe that’s your chance now that Sakurai is gone. But you know deep down how he has to be hurt too from the toxic relationship he was just in. 

“Iizuna asked me to come back as manager so I’m here to decide whether or not I want to return. How are you feeling? After… well you know,” you ask him. At that moment you instantly regret asking him. He’s just out a relationship and that’s what you’re asking? “Sorry that’s personal I shouldn’t have asked. Just ignore that.” You laughed nervously. Just like how he usually was to you, he doesn’t say anything back, just silently standing there as if he expects you to say something. 

He turns around to put his towel back on the bench. Then totally unexpected, he says something quietly to you so that the other players don’t hear. “Thank you for asking. No one asked me how I’ve been and what rumours Sakurai are spreading aren’t helping me either,” he says before walking back onto the court to join in with whatever drill the coach wants them to do. 

You think about what Sakusa said to you. Never in a million years would you expect him to thank you for unintentionally insulting him. Though the look on his face sticks in your mind. As beautiful it was, his expression looked hurt and pained. It’s no secret that he has been in a bad relationship and that he’s been arguing with his (ex-)girlfriend for months and now that after they’ve officially separated, he still can’t completely be free from her grasp. You don’t blame him for feeling that way, after all you had to console your friend from your middle school multiple times for her numerous failed relationships. 

Practice went by as you remembered when you were manager all those months ago. A lot of the boys seemed thankful that you were back. Some even went on to talk about how bad of a manager Sakurai was even when Sakusa was in ear shot.

“She always had to make sure Sakusa had his water bottle first because if she touched the club’s her hands would be dirty and he wouldn’t accept it.”

“She didn’t wash the towels, pinnies or water bottles so we were wearing sweat filled pinnies for our practice matches and I was completely embarrassed because the other team could definitely smell it!” 

More and more complaints about Sakurai and compliments about you were given. You were flattered but thought the compliments were blown way out of perspective. You just did what was supposed to be done, which wasn't a whole lot. “So [l/n], are you going to be manager again?” Komori asks you and the conversations dies in anticipation. Well isn’t that dramatic, it’s not like they were on the tip of their seats waiting to know if you were going to be the Queen of England or something. 

“Ehh, um, yeah sure.” And it comes out more like a question than a statement but it causes and uproar in the crowd. 

“Go back to the dorms and shower!” yells the coach and the boys disperse, collecting their things and heading to the changeroom to get changed. You noticed that Sakusa already left, probably to get changed before everyone else.

You too, go change and head to the laundry room to wash the towels and water bottles. Upon entering, you noticed Sakusa was already in there cleaning. This brings you back to when you were cleaning the water bottles and he came in to help. Now the roles are reversed.

“Do you need help?” you ask. Though it doesn’t matter if he says no, you’ll help him out anyways. You grabbed the basket of towels and threw them in the washing machine. 

“You asked me how I felt after the break up,” Sakusa says. 

“Um, yeah I did,” you respond wearily, trying to get a sense of what he’s trying to say.

“I was never really open with my feelings and honestly I didn’t really like Sakurai the way she saw me. I saw her as a friend who respected my boundries but I decided I needed to let myself be more open to more things. But things got worse and worse after time. She ended up being a really clingy girlfriend who's succumbed to movie romance standards. She invaded my personal space, she put her unwashed hands on my clothes and wore them when she didn’t ask, she directly ate out of my food and she forced me to kiss her on one of our dates. I felt like I was being suffocated,” he says, scrubbing the insides of one the water bottle. You take the ones that were already washed and began drying them.

“She told me you kissed her on the date,” you say, recalling that Sakurai was bragging about the kiss.

“She probably did that to make you jealous,” Sakusa says. Handing the water bottle to you, he began to clean another one and the two of you worked like clockwork. “We had a lot of fights about the stupid things and every time we did I just wanted to walk away and let it just fade away. But she didn’t let me do that and it just made things worse.” You’ve never heard Sakusa talk this much but he’s clearly ranting out his emotions that he had to hide away from everyone so you let him. 

“I wanted to break up with her for a long time but I couldn’t seem to do it. I wasn’t that in love with her. At least not as much as she was with me. I wanted it all to end.” 

“So it was a toxic relationship huh,” you reply. You’ve labelled their relationship as such and at this point, crush or not, it’s never a good thing to be in a toxic relationship. 

“Yeah that’s one way to put it.”

“I’m sorry but I can’t help but ask, why are you telling me this? Isn’t it easier to tell Komori these things?” Lo and behold, probably your worst statement of your life. 

“I guess you make it really easy to talk to. I’ve also noticed that you take into consideration into how things affect other people. Like that gym class with the basketball player on the team. You were mad at us for not playing and I wanted to help but I just couldn’t bring myself to be in such close proximity with people all the time. As for Komori, I feel bad after he got some of the attacks Sakurai did which was meant for me. I can’t burden him with how I feel.” You remember the class. The basketball player was Uchiyama and you remember how you asked Sakusa and Sakurai to try a bit but they (mainly Sakurai really) refused. What hurts you a bit is how he still referred to the two of them as “us”.

“I was never told I was easy to talk to but I’ll take it,” you laugh as you wipe down the last water bottle. Sakusa goes to the washing machine and takes out the wet towels and hangs them.  “Hey, if you ever need to talk to someone, you can always talk to me,” you offer. Sakusa talking this much is definitely something you never heard of. After all, this long of a conversation was completely out of character for him. Or you. Who knows.

“Then how about I get your number so we can text,” Sakusa asks and if him talking to you was a shock, asking for your number definitely takes the cake. What other surprises lie ahead?

You walk to your bag to take out your phone and notice a text from Komori. 

‘Rin-chan sprained her ankle during her race. I’m going off early so don’t wait for me’ is what he texted. You frown, is Ishida okay? You begin typing out a reply to Komori and Ishida. 

“Is everything okay?” Sakusa asks.

“Ishida sprained her ankle during her race,” you answer him as you type back.

“Komori’s girlfriend?” You nod. Sighing, you give Sakusa your phone to put in his number but he doesn’t take it. You then realized that he probably wouldn’t touch your phone due to whatever hidden germs were on it. 

“What’s your number?” He recites his number and you type it into a contact and promptly send him a text. 

“Did you get a message?” you asked once you sent out a hi with a smiley face. You hear a ping from his bag and he goes and takes his phone out. 

He turns the phone around and shows you. “This your number?” he asks and you confirm it. “I think we’re done here. I’ll walk you to your room,” he offers and you let him walk you to your room.

Noticing that you were thriving off of all this attention you realized that even though you tried countless numbers of time to rid your feelings with him, the number of times you try to pretend that you didn’t like him anymore, just this one conversation has you all wrapped up between his fingers and the worst part is; you think your feelings are coming out way too obviously. 


	12. Chapter Twelve

You and Sakusa started texting each other fairly often. Not as much as Ishida was with Komori but it's still a considerable amount. Though being more friendly with the school’s beloved volleyball ace meant that you were being seen as his “rebound” from his relationship. That did upset you a bit. 

On Saturday, you and Kimura are heading to the hospital in the morning to visit Ishida who stayed there overnight in order to get surgery for her ankle which was reported as broken after her x-ray. Komori stayed with her and is so far being a good boyfriend. You heard from Ishida that she actually qualified but at the finishing line she tripped and broke her ankle so she had to drop out. Kimura told you that Ishida really wanted to head off to represent Itachiyama in the qualifiers in the competition. 

You had asked Sakusa if he wanted to come but he refused saying that he wanted to sleep in due to a headache. The two of you usually text at night and talk about all the little things in your life. Lately you've been telling him about how you’ve wanted to go to a digital art museum and he’s been telling you all the times someone mildly inconveniences him. 

At the hospital, you and Kimura meet up with Komori who led you up to Ishida’s room. 

“She’s been doing really well, I’m proud of her,” he tells you guys as you’re all ascending in the elevator to the sixth floor. 

“Well don’t tell us tell her!” Kimura exclaims. In her hand was a box of chocolates that you and Kimura collectively bought to cheer Ishida up. 

Her room was close to the elevator so it wasn’t long until you saw your roommate. It was never mentioned but it was pretty unanimous to enter the room civilized and calm. Clearly Kimura had other plans when meeting her best friend. 

Slamming the door open, Kimura had no intentions to be subtle. “My love I have returned! I bring with me a box of chocolates that I have travelled high and low to find and only to you I shall give to!” You tried to hold back your laughter and it clear that Ishida was trying to as well. 

“Hey I thought we all knew that she’s my girlfriend and that I should give it to her,” Komori says sarcastically taking the box of chocolates while playfully rolling his eyes at Kimura. He hands Ishida the box of chocolates before laying across her lap. “My love has never burned brighter than the morning sun! Please, tell me you will stay with me forever,” Komori says, obviously playing around. Ishida blushes as she laughs at him.

“Wow that’s incredibly corny I think my eardrums broke,” you say entering the room at last. 

The four of you guys talked four at least three hours before deciding to break for lunch. Komori decided to stay with Ishida so you and Kimura went to have lunch together. Walking down the busy streets of Tokyo, you can understand why Sakusa isn’t so fond of heading out. 

“So I heard you’re talking to Sakusa now,” Kimura asks as the both of you decided to go to a food court inside a mall. 

“Seems so,” you answer.

“I thought you were done with him?” 

“I am. Is it a problem to be friends with him though?” Lies.

“According to Rin, who got her information from Komori, Sakusa talks about you a lot.”

“Well I’m unaware.”

“You still have feelings for him. They’re just coming out because he’s single again.”

“Nope. Just friends.” LiEs!!!!. 

Kimura doesn’t drop the topic. All throughout lunch she’s been basically interrogating you about Sakusa. You liked talking about Sakusa (though you will never admit it out loud), however not when questions about whether or not you like him are not included. 

“Come on, I promise I won’t tell anyone if you still like him. I won’t even tell Rin or Komori!” Ugh, why can’t you be persistent with her and say no? Why do you give in so easily?

“Fine, I do still like him just a little. Emphasis on the little!” Kimura smirks as she slurps up her noodles before choking on it. Karma. 

“I freaking knew it!” Of course she did, everyone seems to know about your crush on Sakusa. 

“Okay so now you know, what’s that going to do?” you ask as you take a bite out of your own noodle. 

“I can be your best wingman!” You look at her skeptically, not buying into her counter. Having Kimura as a wingman? That could either go pretty well or really bad. Like super bad. Sighing puts down her chopsticks and leans closer to you. “I’ll tell you who I have a crush on.”

You were instantly bought. “Alright bet. Who do you like?” 

Kimura takes a deep breath and takes out her phone. She begins to type something and once she places her phone on the table. A couple seconds later, you feel your phone vibrate. Taking it out of your pocket, it’s a text from Kimura.

‘Uchiyama from our class’ is what she wrote. 

“Wait. You’re gay?” you ask seriously. 

Kimura leans back in her chair and pouts. “I promised you. Why would I be joking? Wait, do you think it’s a joke?” She asks and she looks offended. You quickly shake your head. The last thing you want is for the captain of the judo team to knock you out. For good. 

“No of course not. Honestly I would’ve been surprised with whatever answer you give me. But Uchiyama was definitely not one of my possibilities,” you tell her and Kimura laughs. “Have you told Ishida or Komori?” you ask and Kimura shakes her head.

“Definitely not Komori. Rin knows I’m gay but she doesn’t know about Uchiyama. I only came out to her a couple of months ago,” Kimura admits. 

“Wait but she told me you liked Sakusa before you dropped feelings for him and focused on judo.”

“I thought I liked him but judo was half the reason. The other half was because I realized that I wasn’t actually interested in boys.” 

“Oh,” you say with a smile. “Well I’m glad that you figured out your feelings. It must be better than feeling confused about whether your feelings are what you really want or if it’s just society telling you that you should be one way,” you tell her and Kimura agrees. You guys move away from the topic of crushes and start to complain about the work load in your classes. The both of you thought it was totally unjust and is causing more stress on students than academic achievement. 

Finishing lunch, you and Kimura decide to part ways as she wants to visit her parents who lives in the area. It reminds you that you should visit your parents but their latest call told you that they were living in another district of Tokyo so you would definitely need to plan a visit. 

You pass by a movie theatre on your way to the train station and a memory returns to your mind. The day where Komori tried to ask Sakusa to go to the movies with you as a double date with Komori and Ishida. You remember not wanting to go in the end because you were jealous. The image of Sakusa talking with Sakurai burns in your head and you have to shake it out of there. Despite that, you sit on a nearby bench and take out your phone. 

‘Hey wanna catch a movie with me this weekend?’ you type out and send out to Sakusa after a long moment of thought. You sit there waiting for his response. Looking around the area, you notice that there’s a nearby park filled with children and across the street was an ice cream parlour. Maybe you should check out the parlour one day. You keep checking your phone every minute or so waiting for his reply. Why were you so impatient when it comes to him?

Sakusa was never a fast replier or typer. Sometimes he’ll leave you on delivered for hours before responding with a dry text. It pisses you off some days. You know he's usually not on his phone but somehow it hurts more when he leaves you on delivered more often than he leaves you with a dry text that you don't know what to do with. But, your phone goes off with a text from him. 

‘This weekend? Interhigh is next week. It wouldn’t be wise to go’ and just like that he shuts your request down. Ha ha, it’s just like the last time when he was asked to go to movies with you. You sat up and started to walk towards the train station. 

You type back an ‘ok’ and shoved your phone into your pocket. You don’t hear anything from your phone even when you’re sitting in the train almost at your stop. You keep your hand on your phone because you do want him to text back. Giving in to the desire, you look at your message to him only to find out that he left you on delivered. Of course he did. 

But you watch the delivered message change into a read message and him beginning to text back. You wait anxiously for his message. His text bubble disappears and then appears multiple times before disappearing for good. By then, you have to get off your train and walk to the dorm. 

“Why must you do this to me,” you mutter to yourself as you walk towards your dormitory. It feels like Sakusa is actually just playing around with your feelings by then. Or maybe it's just you being greedy for his attention. Whatever the case, you were definitely being mad for no good reason other than your mind thought that you should be at something that isn't even worth being mad at. Then you hear your phone go off and you reach for your phone quickly but stop yourself. You’re acting needy, leave him on delivered for now. Give him a taste of his own medicine. You’ll answer it when you’re in your room. You were petty like this. 

However when you enter your room, you whip out your phone too quickly to be “not bothered” about a text message from a crush.

‘We can go to movies if we win Interhigh’ is what he wrote and you smile like a Cheshire cat. Does he mean it? You were getting all excited over a stupid little promise like this. But then another message pops up which gets you worried. 

‘Can you please come to my room? I think I’m going to die”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i've finally finished writing this entire story :)   
> updates will continue like this until the end of the story (hopefully haha)
> 
> for the meanwhile enjoy!


	13. Chapter Thirteen

You rush over to Sakusa’s room. You know he’s probably being really dramatic and that he was actually fine. But then again, why would he text you about it. When has he ever asked you to do anything? You were sure you’re only there for him to talk to when he was bored (because if he was actually interested why does it take him forever to get back to you) so why did he ask you to go to his room? 

At his door, you took a deep breath and knocked. You can hear something being knocked over inside and it takes Sakusa an excruciating long time to get to the door. When he opens it you’re surprised at his appearance.

His hair is disheveled and messy, his face is flushed completely pink, his eyes have bags under them, he’s in a yellow t-shirt and black track pants and he seems completely out of it. From what you can see, the room is dark with the curtains drawn and behind Sakusa is a volleyball on the floor along with a knocked down chair to which you assume is what he knocked down. 

“Woah, are you okay?” you ask him and his head drops down to a point you can’t see his face. 

“No I’m clearly not,” he says. You urge him inside and turn on the lights. Sakusa lays in his bed with an arm draped over his eyes. You’ve never seen the room so messy. Homework is piled up on the desk, there’s clothes on the floor and a bag (to whom you assume is Komori’s) on a chair. 

“How do you feel?” you ask him as you flip his chair upright and sit next to him. Sakusa tucks himself into his covers. 

“I have a massive headache, I feel so hot, I’m sweating, I feel disgusting and I think this is the end for me. I’m dying. Tell the team to make it to Nationals for my sake,” Sakusa groans as he pushes the covers down to expose his abdomen. 

You notice that despite what he says about being hot, he’s obviously shivering. You lean forward, about to touch his forehead to test temperature before he shuffles away.

“What are you doing?” he asks and it’s quite harsh. Don’t let it get to you, he’s not feeling well. 

“I want to test your temperature,” you say calmly and Sakusa says nothing. 

“I don’t have a fever,” he says barely above a mutter that you almost don’t hear. He’s probably in denial about having a fever. After all, Mr. Germaphobe would die of shock before he dies of this fever. Looking at the time, you notice that you only have about an hour till practice starts. There was no way Sakusa was going to be better by then. 

“Okay you don’t have a fever,” you say, knowing trying to convince him he has one will do more harm than good. “Do you have medication? To help your headache?” you ask him. 

“Yeah, they’re in my bag in the closet,” he says and you stand up to go get it. “No, stop, don't touch anything, you’ll spread your germs.” He’s sick and he thinks you’re the one to spread germs? 

“Sakusa, you probably have more germs than me. Besides you should stay in bed, you’re obviously not feeling well,” you say, grabbing some hand sanitizer and pouring some into your hand. You make sure Sakusa is watching so he knows that you at least sanitized your hands.

You open the closet that you know is Sakusa’s and his bags are easily found. As you expected, his closet is very organized. You spot multiple Itachiyama jackets, a lot of volleyball sweaters, track jackets, and some hoodies and sweatshirts. You spotted the blue hoodie he leant to you the time the both of you were watching movies here and fell asleep. His bag was situated next to a set of drawers to which you assume is where he keeps the rest of his clothes. 

There were two bags there, his school bag and his gym bag. You open his gym bag thinking it’s the most probably place that he would keep his medications and you were right. Opening the side pocket, you see multiple containers vitamins and some Advil. You pick up the container of Advil and read the label. 

“Do you have any water?” you ask Sakusa and you get a groan in reply. 

“I drank it all a couple of hours,” he responds. You hand him the advil container and spot his water bottle on the floor next to his bed. You picked up the water bottle and opened the lid. It was indeed empty with no more water inside the bottle.

“I’m going to fill it up at the water fountain,” you announce but the moment you do, you feel something tug at your sweater. 

“No please don’t leave,” Sakusa says and it comes out as barely as a whisper. He’s panting and sweat is running down his face. You sigh sitting down.

“You need water to help swallow the pills. And drinking a lot of water will help you get better,” you say gently knowing he’s not himself right now. It's weird now that you think about it, how a couple of degrees above your regular temperature can change a person's personality. 

“I know, but I don’t want to be alone right now. I’m dying and I can’t stand the idea of dying alone,” he says. Looking at the clock on his desk, it read 1:14PM which gives you over half an hour before practice. Komori should be here soon to pick up his stuff. 

“I’ll stay until Komori comes back to pick up his stuff for practice. Then I’ll go fill it up okay?” you ask him and he nods. You pull the covers over his shoulder and he tosses it back down. “Sakusa, you’re shivering. I know you feel hot but at least let the blanket cover you. If it gets too hot then just stick your arms out okay?” You pull the covers back up and like you asked, he pulls his arms out and lays them on the blanket. A couple of minutes later the door opens and Komori enters.

“Are you alright Sakusa?” Komori is surprised to see him bedridden and almost equally surprised to see you in his room.

“Obviously not? Are you having fun seeing me in my death bed?” Sakusa retorts, voice raspy. 

“What are you going to do about practice?” Komori asks.

“He clearly can’t go,” you say as Komori picks up his gym bag. 

“Then what about you?”

“I’ll stay with him. He’s too set on dying that he won’t take care of himself.” Sakusa glares at you.

“Okay I’ll go tell the coach then,” Komori says and just as he’s about to leave, you remember needing to fill up water for Sakusa.

“Wait! I’m going to quickly fill up some water for Sakusa. Just wait here, I’ll be quick,” you promise, taking Sakusa’s water bottle and leaving the room. 

You make a run to the water fountain and start to fill up the water bottle. As you were filling up his water bottle, you thought that it might be a good idea to get him another bottle of water especially if he finishes his water. If he won't let you leave to get him water the first time then he probably would do it again. Closing the lid of his water bottle you run to your room and dig around for your unopened water bottle. It felt like an eternity to find it but you do and you run to the water fountain to fill it up again. 

“You took forever,” Sakusa says when you entered the room. You say bye to Komori and closes the door behind him. You hand Sakusa his water bottle and he sits up, taking a pill into his mouth and swallowing it with the water.

“I brought you my water bottle in case you need more,” you said as he hands his water bottle back to you which you place on his desk. “Don’t worry it’s never been used. Go to sleep, you’ll feel better when you wake up,” you say. Sakusa agrees and takes a deep breath. He thinking, or contemplating. You watch him with anticipation with what he's about to say. Does he need something? Does he need a cool towel to be placed on his forehead so that it'll help his temperature go down? Is he hungry? You tried to think of every possible thing he could need before he says something. 

“Can I hold your hand?” What? Did he… just ask to hold your hand? What is going on? That... is definitely something you did not expect.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

You’re baffled. Did Sakusa, the guy who literally said you couldn’t touch his stuff to go find some medicine for him not that long ago, asked you to hold his hand. Your face instantly goes red and you can’t control it. You can feel your cheeks burn and your ears are on fire. 

“Wha-what?” you ask. 

“I need a precaution to make sure you don’t lie to me and leave when I’m asleep. Put on some gloves,” he says. Well this is it, you’re going crazy. Sakusa directs you to a box of latex gloves in his desk to which you assume he uses when he cleans the room. You slip a glove on and immediately realize that the glove is way too big for you. It’s floppy and is hardly comfortable. But just the thought of holding hands with Sakusa is enough for you to return to his bed and slip your hand onto his. However when you do he immediately pulls away. 

What’s his problem? He asked you to hold his hand and now he doesn’t want to touch you? Forget about going crazy, you’re going to go insane. Your rapidly beating heart isn’t doing you any justice and probably is loud enough for the whole world to know that you like Sakusa. Like a huge announcement plastered on the New York Times Square billboards in bright bold colours.

“I changed my mind. Don’t touch me,” Sakusa says, turning to face the wall, away from you. Why is he like this? It seems that he’s deliberately trying to play with your feelings. Resisting a screech of frustration, you take off the glove and throw it into the trash. 

In the time that Sakusa slept, you decide to clean his room up. Besides, he told you that you couldn’t leave so you can’t go out and get your homework to work on while he sleeps. Correction: you could very well do this but you don’t talk with Sakusa face to face often. Yeah you guys text a fair amount but it’s not the same as talking. Not to mention that it was you who didn’t want to leave him. Not because he won’t let you but because you couldn’t throw this opportunity away. 

You begin picking up the clothes that lay on the floor and as you were about to throw them into the laundry hamper, you realized that the clothes could either be Sakusa’s or Komori’s. Flipping the jacket around, you tried to find any indication of who’s jacket around but turned up with nothing. Folding the jacket neatly, you decided it’s probably best for the boys to sort out their clothes. 

One by one, you picked up the clothes on the floor and folded them neatly. Placing them in a pile on the desks, you move on to the homework. Komori’s desk had a bunch of notebooks sprawled out and a textbook. You piled them together and stacked that. Sakusa’s desk just had his laptop on it so you decided it was best not to touch it. 

Walking over to Sakusa, you listened to see if he was asleep. With his soft breathing you just assumed he is and sat back on the chair. What were you going to do to pass the time? You immediately resorted to going through your phone. When you opened it up you were met by your conversations over text with Sakusa. It makes you happy seeing the messages exchanged by the both of you. Scrolling back to read past messages, you start to frown.

You were always the one who texted first. Sakusa’s responses were slow and dry. Nothing much was exchanged other than a five worded answer. You didn’t want to think he’s only answering you because he felt obligated. Being petty, you decide that tomorrow you won’t text him first. If he texts you then he wants to be friends with you if not then you’re really just a last resort for him to have a conversation with and to make you feel better, just respond for the sake of it. Why are you so annoying like this? Why can Sakusa do the tiniest things and make you do the most absurd things? That, you didn’t know why.

Opening Netflix you decide to watch something as he sleeps. You didn’t have your earbuds with you so you lowered your volume to the lowest possible audible volume. You scroll through your options to find something you were in the mood to watch. 

Sakusa turns around and it appears he’s still asleep. His face was still pink but not as much as it was when you first came. Maybe the medicine is helping. Sakusa looks really peaceful when he’s asleep unlike when he’s awake and he’s glaring holes into everything that remotely inconvenienced him. His relaxed face is a contrast but it looks good on him. It looks like he's not pissed at anything and everything around him and it makes you notice his features a lot more. The shape of his nose, his lips, the two moles above his eyebrows and way his hair curls. His hair is quite unusual for a Japanese person. Most of them have straight hair but Sakusa's is somehow curly. It looks so soft that you want to touch it, but you don't because how were you going to explain why you were touching while he was asleep. That's a confrontation you never want to meet.

Settling on watching Brooklyn Nine Nine to pass the time, you get through a grand total of three episodes before Sakusa wakes up. 

“Water,” he croaks dryly. Not taking your eyes off the show you reach behind you and grab his water bottle and hand it to him. Sakusa sits up and drinks the water. You were still watching the American TV show. It was stupidly addictive and it gives you a good excuse to your parents who wanted to remove your subscription to Netflix. Sure there’s Japanese subtitles but the show is in English nonetheless.

Sakusa hands back the water bottle and you just hold it. “How are you feeling?” you ask him. 

“Better. I don’t have a headache anymore,” he responds and you nod your head to show that you’re listening. 

“Think you’ll be good to play for Interhigh?” you ask him as you pause the TV show. 

“Yeah,” he says reaching for the water bottle on your lap. You give it to him.

“Thanks for taking care of me,” he says shyly. He clasps his hands together on his lap and stares at his covers.

“It’s nothing.” What a joke. It’s nothing? You literally didn’t want to leave his side not because he said not to but because you were scared that another opportunity wouldn’t come to talk to him like this. But look at you now, trying to be petty and make him want your attention more than you want his even why he was sick. Though Sakusa getting sick was possibly the most improbable thing that had happened yet here we are. 

After Sakusa said he felt better, you left the room to go back to your own. Practice was almost over so there’s no point of actually going down to help out. The boys should be doing their cool downs now. 

For the rest of the evening, you were doing your homework while facetiming Kimura. 

“Wow, he had a fever? Didn’t think of that one,” KImura laughs. She’s in her room doing some chemistry homework. Her roommate can be seen in the back pacing back and forth with a notebook.

“Yeah but I think he’s playing with my feelings,” you sigh. 

“Oh that reminds me. People keep asking me if you’re dating him,” Kimura tells you and you freeze. 

“What?” 

“Yeah I told them you weren’t but I think they’re talking about how you’re being desperate for his attention and especially since he broke up with Sakurai not that long ago, people think you’re Sakurai’s replacement. It’s bad.” So the whole school knows about your crush on Sakusa. Great, just great. And maybe you should stop trying so hard (not that you thought you were anyways) to talk to him. 

“I’m screwed,” you chuckled. This isn’t good. Not good at all. 

“Oh yeah. Hopefully people will overlook that and think you guys are actually just friends,” Kimura says. “Oh good luck at Interhigh next week. You guys should be able to win and go to Nationals.”

“Thanks but I’m not the one playing so all I have to do is give encouragement really,” you say. In truth, you were nervous. You knew the boys were really good and have the ability to go to Nationals, maybe win but you couldn’t help but be nervous. This was going to be your first actual tournament with the team and you hope you don't screw it up. Especially since you don't have much to do in the first place.

“Oh Rin-chan is being discharged tonight so she said she’s going to watch the games to support Komori,” Kimura notifies you.

“Aw, not so she can see me?” you joke and Kimura plays on.

“Afraid not. I guess you’re third place in her heart,” Kimura pouts playfully.

“Third?!” 

“Unfortunately. It sucks to be you I’m first place and Komori is second place.”

“Komori is second? You demoted her own boyfriend,” you laugh. “Sorry Kimura I’m going to go. You hurt my feelings and I don’t feel like talking to you haha.” Kimura waves through her side of the phone.

“Bye loser.” And you hang up. 


	15. Chapter Fifteen

The bus arrived at Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium and already a bunch of teams were gathered around, looking at who they were playing. Technically Itachiyama isn’t playing for the first round due to being the winners of last year's tournament but they will have to play the winners of the next match. Iizuna wants to watch a couple of the games to get a sense of what their opponents are capable of. 

Gathering by the board with the tournament brackets, the team locates their potential opponents. “So we’re either playing against Wakkanai or Hiroo,” Komori says. Honestly being new to the area, you didn’t know a lot of the schools around. 

“Are they good?” you ask Komori. 

“I never see them in the quarter finals,” Sakusa responds as he passes by you and Komori into the gymnasium with the rest of the team. 

“What he said I guess,” Komori shrugs. “But it never hurts to get an idea of who your opponents are.”

In the lobby the coach gives everyone a little pep talk for the tournament.  “The teams that we need to keep an eye out are Nekoma, Fukurodani and Nohebi. Especially Fukurodani Academy, we don’t know how much their number four has improved. He’ll be a threat to us for sure.” The team agrees. From what you gathered, their number four, Bokuto Kotarou, is one of the top five spikers in the country. He also has quite a presence on and off court, though how he performs during a game will greatly affect the number of points he is able to score. Maybe he'll be like that if he faces you, maybe it'll give you guys a better chance against Fukurodani if their ace isn't playing that well.

“Well we have Sakusa so we should okay,” someone on the team comments with a lot of people agreeing. 

“We can’t put all our burdens on Sakusa so we should do our best to support him,” Iizuna says. Sakusa is one of the top three spikers of the nation and apparently the only second year. Watching him practice you don’t see anything magnificent like power from him but according to Komori, since his wrists are really flexible he can put a really nasty spin on the ball which makes them hard to dig and his spikes are really precise and accurate. Sakusa looks away as if he doesn't like being complimented on.

As the team disperses to go watch the games, half of the team goes and watches the Wakkanai and Hiroo team and the other half goes to go watch Fukurodani, Nekoma or Nehebi’s games. Komori and Sakusa decided to go watch Fukurodani’s match against a small school. You tagged along because you were friends with Komori (and Sakusa but you’re too smitten with your feelings with him). 

“Their jerseys are really cool,” you commented.

“Jerseys are hardly important in a match. It doesn’t define skill,” Sakusa says blandly. 

“Well that’s true,” you reply watching the teams bow and start the game. 

You sat between Sakusa and Komori. The game starts and every time Fukurodani scores a point, you would sneak a glance at Sakusa. Komori must’ve caught on and stood saying, “You guys stay here and watch, I’m going to watch the Nekoma match.” Simultaneously you feel your phone vibrate with a text. 

‘Use this time wisely!!!’ Komori decided to play wingman apparently. 

“That was a good spike,” Sakusa comments when the Fukurodani’s crowd cheered. On court, their number four was celebrating. You didn’t want to let Sakusa know that you didn’t see it so you agreed with him. The current score was 5-1 in Fukurodani’s favour. 

“You didn’t see it. You were too busy looking at me.” Ouch, so he did notice.

“Sorry,” you mumbled, face turning red. 

“I have a question.” Your heart starts to beat faster. You’re nervous for his question all of a sudden.

“Ask- ask away,” you tried to sound confident but you were clearly stuttering. 

“Do you have a crush on me or something?” he asks. You could die with how hot your face is getting. So on top of everyone knowing, he thinks so too? Life is really messing with you.

“Um, no why do you think so?” you lie, trying to play it off. 

“I see.” And he leaves it like that and doesn’t answer your question. The rest of Fukurodani’s match goes by without much of a word between the two of you. It practically kills you the whole time because if he knows about your crush would it be a bad thing to tell him the truth? But then again you can’t distract him during the games. He needs to play his best. But you’re dying to know if he likes you back or not. 

Soon, Iizuna comes over and calls you and Sakusa to get ready for their match. Apparently Wakkanai has come out as the victors of the match so the team is advised to get ready for their match the moment the Nekoma match finishes on Court B. 

Komori walks over to you with Ishida behind with crutches. “Hey you made it!” you smile walking up to Ishida and giving her a hug. She leans over and whispers something into your ear.

“I heard you were with Sakusa earlier. How was that?” she asks. You shake your head.

“Not good, he asked me if I liked him. I told him no but I’m still freaking out over it. Either way, I’ll have to pretend it never happened during our games,” you say with a slight pout. 

“Don’t worry, I don’t think it means much,” Ishida says trying to console you. The coach calls you all over since Nekoma has just finished their match and now warmups are in place. Bidding bye to your friend, you and Komori walk over to the gym door. 

It’s been a while since you’ve been on an official court like this and it gets to you a bit. 

“There’s no point in being nervous if you’re prepared.” Sakusa says behind you. He doesn’t look nervous at all. Is he like that because he knows that the team will win or is it truly because he’s been prepared for this enough that he’s not stressing about it. Also is he just going to pretend that he didn't ask you if you liked him just a while ago? 

He was sick just last weekend and sometimes you still can’t believe it happened. Sakusa also hasn’t said anything about it either so you didn’t bring it up. During warmups, you and the coach tossed the ball to the receiver to help start the spiking warm up. Of course Sakusa did this with no sweat and every time he made a spike you can hear the crowd cheer for him. A lot of fans cheered for him which truly gave you a sense of how popular he was not only in school but in the volleyball world as well. Heck, you've even seen some middle aged men at the top of the gym that looked like scouts. 

Once the referee called for the captain of each team, the coach called the rest of the team over to the bench and discussed their game plan.

“Wakkanai has a middle blocker who has a knack for getting a lot of touches. That’s number 13. Their ace, number 4, tends to do a lot of block-outs and has a nasty jump serve. Keep your receives high to give Iizuna enough time to get under them and let’s have a good game,” says the coach as the team agrees in a chorus. 

Iizuna runs back to the team with the results of the coin toss. “We’re serving first,” he announces and just like that the players head out onto the court ready to play. You take your seat on the bench with your notebook open ready to record the score. 

The game starts with Iizuna serving with a jump serve. It’s a strong serve but Wakkanai’s libero manages to pick it up and their setter starts the play. Just as you expected, their number 4 comes up with a back attack that results in their first point. Wakkanai’s cheer squad screamed with delight at their first point. 

“Sorry!” Iizuna apologizes. The team forgives him and they get ready for Wakkanai’s serve. Just as the coach says, their ace has a nasty serve that Komori barely keeps up. Iizuna is quickly under the ball and performs a quick with Sakusa who scores by spiking the ball at a receiver and it deflecting off of the arm. 

The game flies through quickly and Itachiyama has won both sets with 25-16 and 25-20 in their favour. Overall, you'd say the game was an easy win for your team. 

“You guys did well,” you say to both Komori and Sakusa, both were slightly sweaty.

“Thanks, their libero is pretty good. I heard he’s only in his first year so he might be a bit of a challenge to face next year,” Komori says, praising the libero. 

“It doesn’t matter how good they get. If their team can’t hold up then their loss will be inevitable,” Sakusa says bluntly. The three of you head up to the stands to watch some more games before the boys have to play again. Komori spots Ishida and decides to join her, leaving you with Sakusa. 

“What did you think of the game?” you ask him. It was useless small talk and you know he hates it but you just wanted to talk with him. To hear his voice? Or as self-indulgence that your crush actually responds to you and it’s like crack to which you’re addicted. Or possibly that the silence between the two of you was getting really uncomfortable.

“It was nothing much. They played their best. We played ours. We were just the stronger ones,” Sakusa responds as he sits in the part of the stand that’s completely empty. You follow him. 

“Well you didn’t seem to be nervous when you played,” you respond as you stare out onto the courts. However the matches that were being played didn't capture your attention at all. In fact, you were just mindlessly staring out there. Sakusa looks at you with a sour expression. Was he mad at you or was that just his mad face of the day? 

“You were lying earlier,” is what he says. You’re confused. What is he talking about?

“About not liking me. You have a crush on me don’t you.”


	16. Chapter Sixteen

He knows! You’re done for! Someone can just shoot you while they’re at it. Oh you just want to die in a hole. No funeral needed, just dump your dead body in there with an ‘L’ painted on your forehead because he knows!

“I see the way you look at me and how you look at other boys. Your face also turns red whenever you’re around me. You like me and don’t try to deny it.”

Biting your lip you try to stall for some time. Was he always this observant? Were you making it easy for him to notice but then again, it wasn’t like you were the best actress in the world and you could easily hide your crush away. You wanted to continue hiding your crush on him longer but if he’s this certain, then you’re just making a bigger fool out of yourself. “Yeah, I do,” you say quietly. 

It was quiet between you two. The gym was still loud with games still going on and the rest of the team was gathered by the rails, eating and watching the games. 

“You don’t have to tell me how you feel since I have an idea about what you think about me,” you say, breaking the silence. In all honesty, you don’t know how he feels about you but you knew you weren’t ready to be rejected. If you were, you would’ve confessed yourself instead of being exposed like this. Your heart is pounding against your chest. “You’re not obligated to answer so I rather not hear an answer that you’re lying up just to make me feel better.” 

“If you know how I feel about you then how do I feel?” Sakusa says as he crosses his arms. In the spur of the moment you lied saying that you have an idea about how he feels. Does he see you as just a friend? Yeah that could be it but you didn’t think it wrapped up entirely about what he might feel about you. All you know he doesn’t like you the way you see him. 

“You don’t see me how I see you.” That’s probably the best you can do. Honestly, why you’re still sitting with him just proves how much you want to be with him but he’s a breath away from telling you to leave him alone. 

“I can’t say you’re right or wrong because I don’t know how I feel about you. Besides, I don’t want to go back into a relationship.” Considering how bad his first (or second, who knows) relationship went, it’s indeed not a good idea for him to be dating anyone. Especially with the tournament happening right now, it’s definitely not a good idea for him to be distracted. 

“I’m going to sit with Ishida and Komori,” you tell him and it comes off in a meaner tone than you intend. You walk towards them and resist the urge to look back. Part of you wants him to chase you down and tell you that he’s secretly in love with you and part of you just wants to forget him and everything that happened. 

“You look mad. Did something happen between you and Sakusa?” Ishida asks you and you sigh loudly. 

“He knows I like him,” you tell her. A shocked expression paints both Ishida's and Komori’s face.

“You told him?” Komori asks you, completely bewildered. You shook your head.

“He found out and confronted me,” you answer. 

“Did you tell him?” Ishida whispers accusingly to Komori.

“No, I didn’t tell him anything!” Komori responds defensively. 

“Then how did he find out?” Ishida asks. 

“He told me that I look at him differently from other guys, I turn red near him and some other things.” 

“So, how does he feel about you?” 

You shrug. “He says he doesn’t know but he doesn’t want a relationship right now and I respect that.” 

Nothing else is exchanged about the topic as you continue to watch the games happening on court. In fact, this topic isn’t brought up even when Itachiyama snatches the first ticket to Nationals from Fukurodani who claimed the second ticket to Nationals. 

Of course the boys were happy. They were reigning champions again. The coach promised them a barbeque if they won (though you were pretty sure that there was going to be a barbeque regardless if they won or not) and that’s where you are all heading to right now. The coach has an in-law who runs a barbeque restaurant and specifically today they rented out half the restaurant to feed a team full of hungry athletes. 

“I’m going home to eat,” says Sakusa and Iizuna is already on his butt trying to convince him to go. 

“Come on Sakusa, let’s celebrate as a team. You’re a very vital part of our team and we would all like to celebrate with you,” Iizuna says with a big smile. You can’t help but think he’s slightly drunk on the sheer adrenaline of winning Interhigh. Pulling the zipper on his tracksuit up, you can see Sakusa scowl as he refuses to go. They bicker back and forth and you realize how stubborn Iizuna truly was.

“Just one meal,” Sakusa says, giving in, probably to get Iizuna to stop nagging him. The team cheered and all headed towards the bus. As you board the bus the advisor calls out to you. 

“Komori isn’t here yet, can you go find him?” he asks and you agree, dropping your stuff off on the front seat and heading out towards the gym again. 

It wasn’t hard to find Komori since he’s literally a giant with a bright yellow and green tracksuit. But as you rounded a corner you find him with Ishida making out which makes you wanna hurl. Your eyes were forever tainted. Turning back around the corner you pull out your phone. You decide to call him instead of walking in on them. 

You heard his phone ring and a couple of seconds later he picks it up. 

“Hey [l/n]!” he says cheerfully trying to mask his heavy breathing. 

“Hey, we’re leaving now and I can’t find you. Make it back to the bus or else I’m eating your share of the meat,” you threatened as you began to walk away.

“No problem I’ll be there soon!” he says and hangs up. The image of them kissing burns into your mind. It’s practically melting it. It’s definitely something you don’t want to remember. But you can’t help but think if Sakusa does like you, would he kiss you like that? You shake your head.  The situation in the stands reminds you that he (probably) doesn’t like you and that you’ll (probably) never kiss him. He probably doesn’t want to be friends with you anymore. If you guys were even friends in the first place.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

Komori boards the bus a couple minutes after you do and apologizes to everyone before sitting beside Sakusa. You were mad at yourself, you still thought about Sakusa the same way you did. Foolishly in love. He literally rejected you and you didn’t even confess yourself. You felt like an idiot. 

Amidst wallowing in your own stupidity, the bus arrives at the barbeque restaurant. It was a small restaurant with traditional Japanese furniture. It seems like a really cozy place. The team filed into the restaurant as the staff greeted us politely. The coach shook hands with a man and hugged a woman who you assumed was his sister and her husband who was the owner. They directed the team to two long tables with four grills. The boys all sat down and took their spot. 

“[l/n]-san! Come sit with us,” Komori calls out and motions to the spot beside him. That empty spot was right beside Sakusa and you almost wanted to kill him. He knows what happened between you two and now he’s acting like he doesn’t know. Resisting the strong urge to roll your eyes, you sat down in the empty spot. Almost immediately, Sakusa stands up. 

“I’m going to the washroom,” he announces and leaves the table. Once he was out of sight you turned to Komori with a glare.

“Why did you make me sit next to him?” you whispered in order to not let the other players know. 

“We talked on the bus,” Komori says with a smile. 

“And what did you guys talk about?” you inquire with a raised eyebrow.

“Mmm, mainly about you,” Komori says, clearly trying to get rid of as many details as possible. 

“And what about me?” you ask.

“Oh you’re back!” Komori says cheerfully. You whipped around to see Sakusa back from the washroom. He was wiping his hands with a paper towel so he must’ve gone to go wash his hands. 

Sakusa stares at the two of you with a glare as he sits down. A lady with trays of meat arrives and sets down the first round of meat. You didn’t know what cut it was but you knew it was beef due to the colour. The third year sitting across from you grabs the tray and sets the meat on the grill to start cooking it.

“I’ll cook the meat so you kouhais can let your senpai handle it,” he says smugly but none of you argue with him except for the other third year who sat next to him. They start arguing about who’s really worthy of the senpai title. 

Lunch went by smoother than you thought. You thought it was the end all for you because you’re sitting next to your crush who rejected you. It would’ve been a great lunch if everything except for the rejection happened. Embarrassment keeps returning to you the more you think about it. You need to stop thinking about it.

“Is it too hot for you [l/n]-san? Your face is really red,” the third year asks you and you nod, pretending that was the issue. You already took off your sweater so you were in your t-shirt instead despite the room not actually being that hot. You told the third year that it's pretty hot near the grill and not because of the person you were sitting next to.

Thankfully lunch was over and it was time to go home. It was also the time that the coach decided to inform you all that the bus was only booked to bring you guys to the restaurant and not back to the school since the baseball team needed it to go to their game. Some of the players decided to walk back while others decided to go hang out some more. 

“I’m going back to the dorms!” Komori says and you decided to embarrass him a bit.

“To finish what you started with Ishida at the gymnasium?” you ask teasingly and Komori’s face turned red so fast you thought he might pass out.

“What- what do you, do you mean?” Komori chuckles nervously while scratching the back of his head.

“There’s a reason I called you even though I knew where you were,” you smile smugly. Komori was clearly nervous.

“You said you didn’t know where I was.”

“Oh I did. I just didn’t want to interrupt you two. You can do whatever you want, it’s not my business. But if I find out that you guys did it on my bed because it’s the bottom bunk I’ll murder you both,” you say with a smile. You really want to take a picture of Komori’s face right now.

“We- we haven’t gotten that far!” Komori says defensively and you laugh. 

“Sure, okay.” you nod you head. 

“Anyways, Rin-chan is waiting for me so I’ll be off!” Komori says as he starts to walk away quickly towards the school. 

Now what are you supposed to do? You made sure to complete your homework before the games and you weren’t really in the mood to do any of your laundry either. Maybe you could kill some time by familiarizing yourself with the area. 

“[l/n],” Sakusa calls out your name. Oh gosh, someone just end you. You would much rather swim with sharks than hear whatever Sakusa has to tell you. But you listen anyways because haha jokes on you, you’re still not over him.

“Are you busy?” He asks. For some reason his facial expression seems to be accusing you of being busy or not. 

“Uh, no.” You say and Sakusa fishes out his phone. He starts to type something onto it. 

“Disinfect your hands,” he (orders) says and you dig out your hand sanitizer and rub some onto your hands with a confused expression on your face. What is he doing? 

He hands you his phone and on it were lists of in theatre movies. “I promised you a movie if we won. Pick out a movie before I change my mind about this whole thing,” he says and you scroll through your options. 

You can’t believe it, was he always this nice? Wait no but he’s been acting like a jerk to you. But he was kind of nice when he was sick? How did he remember the promise if he wasn’t feeling well? Not even you remembered about that promise. Is this God making up for making Sakusa play with your feelings? 

Out of the movies you decided to pick the movie 1917 as you heard it has great cinematography and visuals. Sakusa doesn’t seem to mind your pick and takes back his phone. 

“Let’s go now, the next screening is in an hour and a half,” he says walking away. You walk beside him and like all the other times, you guys don’t talk. You were in this state of mad and happy. Happy that he’s going to watch a movie with you but you were still mad at him for calling you out for liking him and rejecting you. 

The theatre wasn’t far at all and it takes only you guys about a 15 minute walk to reach the theatre. This wasn’t the theatre that you saw when you were returning from the hospital but it appears there’s more things around here. 

Entering the theatre, the staff asked for tickets. As you were about to line up to go buy tickets, Sakusa called you back.

“I got it covered,” he says as he showed his phone for the staff to scan.

“The theatre is on the second floor to your left in theatre number 4.” The staff smiles and grants you guys entry into the theatre.

“You paid for my ticket?!” you said with surprise. Sakusa shrugs.

“Then I’m paying for snacks,” you urge but Sakusa sneers.

“We just ate lunch.” 

“Then after the movie at least let me treat you to a snack or coffee or whatever you want. At least something because now I feel bad that you paid for my ticket when I could’ve paid it myself,” you tell him as you guys climb the stairs. 

“You don’t have to get me anything,” Sakusa says.

“No I have to. It’s not right for you to pay for something I suggested.”

“Then after the movie we can go grab a drink.” You smile, you just convinced Sakusa. What are the odds?

Commercials were playing when you entered the theatre. There were a couple of people in the theatre but it was quite empty. Apparently this theatre didn’t have an assigned seating so you sat down where you thought would be a good choice to view the movie. You sit in the middle of rows of seats and Sakusa sits right beside you. He didn’t even leave a seat in between the two of you. 

“I’m surprised you didn’t leave a seat in between,” you tell Sakusa and he sighs.

“If more people come in then I would much rather sit next to someone I know than a bunch of people where I don’t even know what they touched or where they have been.” Well, he’s got a point. But still, this was still uncharacteristic of Sakusa as the movie was starting in an hour and there were only five people not including you two in the theatre.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

The movie begins and the first shot has you in awe. The lighting and scenery was absolutely stunning. As the movie progresses, the one-shot effect is really breath-taking and you don’t regret picking this movie. You glance over at Sakusa and he’s frowning. 

“Do you not like the movie?” you whisper to him. He shakes his head and leans over to whisper back.

“It’s dirty.” Taking a deep breath, you chuckle a little.

“It’s only a movie. It’s not going to spray out at you. Besides it really was that dirty during war times in Europe apparently,” you tell him and return to the movie. You didn't think his germaphobic nature extended into the cinematic world. You made sure to check up on Sakusa one in a while during the movie but at one point, you were so engrossed with it that you forgot Sakusa was there. 

When the film ended you stood up and stretched, ready to head out of the theatre. Sakusa however, told you to wait for everyone else to leave first so that you guys wouldn’t have to be in the crowd. 

“But Sakusa there’s only eight other people here,” you say, slightly confused. The others in the theatre weren't rushing to get out and in fact there's two exits so it's not even that crowded to begin with. There should be more than enough room for you two to leave without being in someone's (or Sakusa's for that matter) personal space.

“It’s still a crowd,” he says. 

“Okay… So did you like the movie?” you ask him, sitting back down on the seat. 

“Apart from all the dirt, blood and ruins, I can appreciate the shots,” he says, watching the people leave. Once everyone else was gone, he stood up and headed towards the stairs to walk down to the exit at the bottom of the theatre. 

“You mean shot? There was only one,” you retort with a smirk. 

“There was a fade to black cut at one point so there were a total of two shots,” he fires back quickly. “Well, did you like it? You seemed really into it.”

Your face flushes a bit. Was he watching you? Did he pay attention to see if you were enjoying it?

“Um, yeah I liked it. Hey I promised to treat you after the movies, anywhere you want to go?” you ask him. Outside, the sun was setting so the sky was a deep blue and orange. It was really pretty and you had to resist an urge to take a picture but frankly that's just cringy when you're with someone else. Besides, there should be one everyday so it's not like it's going to disappear forever. 

“Doesn’t matter, you pick.” He says and you lead him to a convenience store that was nearby. However, he refuses to enter due to it being extremely dirty even though it looked relatively clean. Then you took him to a bakery again he declined saying that he doesn’t know how long the pastry has been out and insects could’ve touched them. Next it was a small tea shop and finally he (reluctantly) agreed to go in. 

The tea shop was cute and small. There were only two tables and each one only held two chairs. The menu was fairly small but there was a bubble tea option along with some hot teas. 

“What do you want to drink?” you ask him as he scans the menu for something that he would want. 

“Hot green tea in a small,” he orders. 

“Small? Are you sure? I can get you a bigger size, it's not a problem.” 

“Medium then.” You smile and walk up to the cashier and order his green tea. Paying the cashier, you wait with Sakusa at a table he's standing by.

“I never thought you were a tea person,” you tell him. You didn’t actually think about if he’s a coffee or tea type of person and it actually makes a lot of sense that he would drink tea.

“It has a lot of benefits,” he answers. There’s always a silence that lingers between the two of you. It always ends up with you wanting to continue a conversation but can’t think of anything to say and Sakusa who doesn’t really put in any effort to continue the conversation. The two of you waited silently for the barista to brew his tea.

“Medium hot green tea!” the staff calls out and you walk over to the counter to get it for Sakusa. Thanking the staff and bidding her a good day, you hand the tea over to Sakusa and head towards the school. 

“Ah today was a perfect day!” you say with a smile. “We won Interhigh, ate a delicious barbeque and watched a beautiful movie.”

“No day can be perfect.” Ugh why does he have to ruin it. Of course it’s not a perfect day but the good outweighs the bad. And honestly the worst that has happened today was definitely Sakusa’s confrontation of your crush on him. But then again the best part of today also involved him. Why can’t you just be mad at him? Why does your crush on him sway your feelings that much? 

“Fine today isn’t a perfect day,” you say bluntly as you glare at the ground. Sakusa seems to think that you’re now mad. 

“Is it because I asked if you had a crush on me?” he says. Wow, straight to the point. Never mind him, you can’t even keep yourself in check. First you were happy to be with him, then you were mad, then you were happy and now you’re mad. What is wrong with you? Is your period coming soon or something?

“Maybe,” you respond. 

“Look, I told you I don’t want to be in a relationship. I’m happy with how we are now,” he says. Happy with how we are now. You would’ve been happy to hear that weeks before but now you don’t even want that. At this point you think you fell into a hole of your own emotions that you'll never get out of because you’ll never be content with just being friends with him. You don’t want to be friends with him anymore. You want him to like you back too and you hate yourself for wanting that because you know he doesn’t. You don’t care about being in a labelled relationship. You just want to know if he likes you just a little bit. 

Maybe you always did. From the time he dated Sakurai, you tried so hard to forget about your feelings for him that you were secretly jealous. He willingly let go of his restrictions for her and you wish he did the same to you. You wish he was more willing to try things with you as he was with her. And maybe you’re being slightly mean to him because when he told you that he didn’t feel right in his relationship with Sakurai you were secretly happy because he didn’t want to be with her. He was telling you all these things and making you feel somewhat special and you bought it.

“And I didn’t ask you to be in one with me.” You wanted to know how he feels about you. His answer from the gym isn’t enough. You want to know what he thinks of you. A yes or a no, hell you'll even take a little bit. And he seems to get the hint. 

“You want to know how I feel about you, right? Isn’t it how it goes? Someone confesses and you have to answer them back. To give them a complete answer right?” He says. You know you told him that he doesn’t need to tell you how he felt but you desperately want to know. 

“I told you I don’t know how I feel about you.” Of course he remembers. “But, throughout today I don't think I wasn't completely honest in the gym. I think I do like you, just a little bit. They’re slightly stronger than what I felt with Sakurai but then again I didn’t really like her to begin with. But with Nationals coming up, I don’t want a relationship.” Your whole face turns red and the tip of your ears are equally as red. What? Huh? Sakusa… likes you? A little bit is still something right? You’re not overthinking it right? 

“That makes sense,” you mutter quietly. Sakusa takes a sip out of his tea. The school is now in sight and no one seems to be outside. 

“I think the biggest reason I don’t want to be in a relationship is because I don’t want a repeat of my first. I’m scared of being in one now I guess,” Sakusa says quietly, almost ashamed. It’s kind of weird to you that he’s being this open about his romantic life. He used to be so tight-lipped about his personal life but now he’s just letting all these words flow out of his mouth.

“It would be reasonable to be hesitant to be in another relationship if that’s what your first ended up being like. I think you just needed someone who understands you better and is willing to adhere to your needs. But on the flip side you also have to make sure you’re doing your part too.” You say. 

“I don’t think you’re like Sakurai in any way. You're a lot nicer, you pay attention to everyone and you never put yourself ahead of others. I've noticed that a long time ago. But I feel that I don’t know you enough to actually want to be in a relationship with you. I like you a little bit but it’s not enough to convince me it's worth my time and effort.”

“Then would you be opposed to going on more outings like this with me? You don’t have to call them dates, they can just be us hanging out.”

A long pause awaits from the two of you. It’s not until you guys are at the front of the dorms, Sakusa speaks up. 

“As long as we keep this to ourselves, I’d like to hang out with you some more,” Sakusa says as he pulls down his mask and shows you the faintest of smiles. 


	19. Chapter Nineteen

With the time in between Nationals, you and Sakusa went out on more hangouts. None of them were extravagant. Most of the time they were just coffee shops Sakusa deemed clean enough and the occasional movie. The two of you seemed to get along quite well when it's just the two of you. Around the team, he would open up to some more conversations but rarely they were anything other than volleyball. You do notice how he acts differently towards you depending on who's around. On a side note, people at school seemed to notice your increasing interactions with Sakusa.

“Is [l/n] from Class One dating Sakusa? Isn't it too soon for Sakusa to be in another relationship?” someone in the hall whispered. It’s been like this for a while. People were bound to suspect things and it’s more annoying than anything. More so when Sakurai decides to get herself involved. 

“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” she says one day at lunch. She came into your class in the middle of lunch as you, Komori and Ishida were working on a math problem that you were all stuck on. A pesky trig identities question that wouldn't work out. Kimura was somewhere in the school claiming she needed to do something. However, you saw her exit the class with Uchiyama so maybe she's trying to initiate something between the two of them.

“Come again?” you asked not getting what she’s talking about. You look her dead in the eye and mustered up the best confused expression you could do since you have no idea what she wants to gain from this conversation.

“He’s not as good as everyone puts him up to be,” she continues. Komori looks at Sakurai with a slight glare due to her attacks when Sakusa and her first broke up. Seems like he’s still mad at her for that.

“He makes every little thing a problem, he moves too slowly in the relationship, never has time for us and overall is probably the world’s worst boyfriend,” she says raising her voice. Now the whole class was listening. This is probably the absolutely worst moment in your life. It’s like being put in a spot light and being accused of something you haven’t even done.

“Okay and what’s your point,” you asked her. You heard Sakusa’s side of the story and you guessed this is what Sakurai saw in the relationship. Though hearing Sakusa's side, it's quite fair to say that you're pretty biased in this argument.

“My point is that everyone knows you’re trying so hard to get together with Sakusa and I’m just being nice and telling you that you’re wasting your time,” she says, crossing her arms. Did you really seem like you were trying too hard to be with Sakusa? You thought you were respecting his wishes by not asking to get into a relationship with him and just hanging out with him as a friend. Is being his friend the problem here? Can girl-boy friendships not exist without people thinking that you're dating each other?! You don’t even know if Komori knows about what happened after the barbeque and you didn’t tell Ishida or Kimura because one of the conditions he said was to keep the ordeal to yourselves. But it seems like everyone knew that you two were hanging out. 

“I know what I’m getting myself into. And I’m not trying to get together with him, we're just friends.” You furrow your brows since she was starting to annoy you a bit. She really needs to drop the topic. Is she still into him despite what she said? There's no way that you hate your ex's gut and do this sort of nonsense.

“Whatever you say.” She rolls her eyes. “I’m still probably the best girlfriend he will ever have and when he comes back running to me begging to get back together with me I won’t hesitate to reject him,” she smirks before walking away with the whole class watching her. Psh, as if he wants to get back to her. But seriously w hat the heck? Did she literally just come here to tell you that she is Sakusa’s best girlfriend? Sakusa literally rants to you about he doesn’t want another girl like Sakurai and because of it he doesn't want a relationship anymore. Self-confidence is good but when it comes off like that it’s just arrogance. 

“She’s so full of herself,” Ishida says once everyone gets back to what they’re doing. Her crutches are at the side of Komori’s desk because she insisted on coming over instead of you and Komori moving to her desk to make it easier on her. 

“I try to be friendly and nice to everyone but oh boy, she makes me miserable,” sunshine boy Komori groans as he drops his head onto his desk.

“Do I really seem desperate to Sakusa?” you ask because you’re sure as hell you’re not going to buy into whatever Sakurai is saying. Komori shakes his head. 

“I think Sakusa actually likes you. He talks about you from time to time and he used to only talk about school or volleyball. He hasn’t told me anything about how he feels about you but he seems happier after you started hanging out with him,” Komori says putting away his notebook claiming he's done with the question and will just search up the answer later. 

“I think Sakusa needs time,” Ishida says and you nod. You knew how he felt about you. He tells you how he felt during the hangout over text and a lot of the times he says he had fun. They’re like reviews and you always look forward to them. It’s been so easy to talk to him lately and you think if you liked him before, you’re in love now. It’s stupid how attention gets you so riled up. 

Today the team has a joint practice session with a university nearby. The advisor had an old classmate who teaches there and they agreed to plan this practice session for the team. It was a supposed two day practice session that would take place after school. Today your team were to go to their gym and tomorrow they're coming here. The university’s volleyball team was said to be top three in the prefecture which will be a good challenge for Itachiyama.

After school, you and the team all boarded the bus that would take you to the university. It was a twenty minute drive away but it doesn't seem to be a problem with everyone chatting away in excitement. Everyone seemed pretty excited to partake in this experience and so were you. 

“I heard they have a middle blocker that’s two metres tall!” one of the boys said in the back. 

“Their setter was on the national youth team,” another one says. The boys kept talking about rumours about who was on the team and before they knew it, the bus pulled into the university. The campus was about twice the size of Itachiyama’s campus and you knew for sure that people coming here for the first time would get lost. The university team comes out to greet us. 

They were all quite tall but they had pretty lax expressions. Your team bowed thanks to them and they took the team straight to the gym. The school seems very architecturally modern but the gym was still something you’re familiar to. Inside there are a bunch of pylones set up. 

“Alright kiddos, we’re going to split you guys into different groups for the warm up. It’s going to be rotational with stations. So the coach will give you guys a number from one to five and you’ll head to the station of your corresponding number,” someone from the university team. From the authority in his voice, you believe he’s the captain. 

The coach assigns everyone a number and they all disperse into their warm up groups. They're a mix of both teams so that your team wouldn't get too confused on what to do. You set your things down by the bench as the players started to get warmed up. You were in charge of the five minute timer and to yell switch whenever it went off. 

The warmups went pretty smoothly and once it was over the boys looked like they were really warmed up and a little out of breath. The coach seemed to like this method of warmup and asked you to jot it down for him to remember later. 

Majority of the time was spent doing drills and learning new techniques and tricks but nearing the end of the day was the long anticipated game of university vs high school. Both teams were excited to take part in this. 

“You look like you’re about to explode with excitement, Komori,” you chuckle, handing him a towel. 

“Of course I am! I want to try to receive their left handed spiker because I heard Ushijima Wakatoshi from Miyagi is going to be at Nationals,” he says smiling. 

“Wakatoshi-kun is the reason why Shiratorizawa is Nationals in the first place. Without him, I don’t think they’ll be at Nationals so consistently,” Sakusa comments while taking a sip of water. 

“How well does he play?” you ask Sakusa. 

“He’s traditional in the sense of an ace. He plows through blockers and is a classic example of a cannon. To add on top of that, he’s left handed so with his southpaw spin and his power, he’s practically unstoppable,” Sakusa says. 

“You seem to respect him quite a bit don’t you Sakusa,” you smile at him. He turns away, wiping his sweat. 

“He’s a threat to us at Nationals. I like to get a better sense of my opponent in order to be properly prepared.”

“Sure thing.” 

Talking with Sakusa is much easier now but he’s still unpredictable in the amount he talks. Either he doesn’t say a word or he’s hogging the whole conversation. You’re never mad when he hogs the conversation because you do like the sound of his voice though. 

The practice match starts off very well for your team. Their serves were good and their blocks were getting touches on a lot of the university team’s spikes. The first set was easily yours. However, on the second set, the university team steps it up and snags a four point lead.

“That’s what they’re known for,” the coach says beside you. “They take it easy in the first set and hammer everything they got in the second set. They analyze their opponents then shut them down.” 

Looking back at the game you know what the coach meant. The university team is playing more seriously, they’re punching more power into their spike and serves. Your team seems to be struggling a bit with receiving the ball. Even Komori appears to have some trouble controlling the ball once it’s in the air. 

The university swipes a set from you guys with a harsh 25-19 win. The coach calls everyone in. “I want you guys to keep an eye out for number 12’s straights. Force him into doing more crosses by shutting out his straight options. Let’s try to get Komori to pick those up. Also, what the heck is up with your guy’s receives? All I want is to get them to Iizuna as easy as possible and if that’s not possible then get them up high. You all need to stop panicking when the score keeps widening. Keep a clear head and score those points steadily,” the coach finishes right before the referee (a bench player from the university team) calls for the starting players again. 

This set is much better. The receives still weren’t that controlled but they were much higher and so the set ups were much stronger than the panic that the team was doing earlier. Sakusa is scoring a lot of the points which both irritates and amazes the other team. 

“He’s freaking crazy. Are you sure he’s just a second year?” The number 3 middle blocker says while looking at Sakusa. Sakusa didn’t seem to take that lightly and glared at the number 3 before a third year on your team tells Sakusa to ignore it as it was just a compliment. 

The third set still resulted in a loss for your team but there was a smaller point gap between the scores. They played till 25-23 where the university team took the extra two points. 

“Can we play another set?” someone from your team asks the coach, slightly out of breath from playing. The coach laughs and asks the other coach if they were willing to play another set. They agree to play another couple of sets. 

To rest the starting players, this time the usual bench warmers were playing. Sakusa sat next to you and you swore you turned redder than the players and you didn’t even move. You know you should be watching the practice match, you have to because that’s what you’re supposed to be doing. But it gets increasingly hard to not look at Sakusa. 

So you spared a glance at him. Parts of his bangs were sticking to his forehead and were damp with sweat. Sakusa did a good job wiping the sweat off his face but his face was still flushed from playing three sets. 

“Stop staring,” Sakusa says and you quickly turned away. He caught you staring at him and oh lord the embarrassment comes in like a tsunami. How can you ever face him ever again? Suddenly a whole surge of regret came washing over you all because he caught you staring at him. 

“Sorry,” you mutter as the tips of your ears turn red and you can feel them burning. 

“You need to focus on what you need to do. If you’re incapable of doing that then you shouldn’t be here.” And you hate his guts. Why does it seem like the world is on your side one day and all of a sudden it takes a 180 and laughs in your face? Sometimes Sakusa says things to you that makes you believe that he’s really into you but then he says stuff like this and it’s like talking to two different people. 

You don’t respond to him and just watch the game. Though that’s all you did. You didn’t take notes on the players because even if your eyes were on the game, you weren’t paying any attention. 

Sakusa doesn’t talk to you for the rest of the match, or day for that matter. You wished he would stop confusing you all the damn time. Komori told you not to take things he says too personally as he says just the truth but it still hurts sometimes. Though would it be too much to ask for just a clear answer to Sakusa's actions? 

Boarding the bus, it’s already late and you were tired. You fell asleep on the way back so when you woke up again, it was Sakusa who poked you awake.


	20. Chapter Twenty

“[l/n], we’re here.” You open your eyes and yawn. Taking a look around you, the bus was back on campus and everyone was already off the bus walking towards the dorms. You sit up and pick up your belongings. Sakusa moves out of your way and walks out of the bus to where Komori is waiting. 

“Looks like Sleeping Beauty is awake,” Komori jokes and you shoot him a glare while forcing back another yawn. 

“You drool in your sleep,” Sakusa says as he's putting on his mask and immediately you start to wipe your mouth. 

“There’s no denying it [l/n]-chan because before I exited the bus I snapped these lovely photos of you,” Komori grins showing you a collection of photos with your mouth wide open, a very obvious line of drool running down the corner of your mouth. Never, will you fall asleep on a bus with Komori on it again.

“Komori delete that right now,” you say but it comes out all croaky and hoarse. Komori bursts out in a hearty laugh and even Sakusa snickers a little.

“Or what [l/n]-chan?” he laughs skipping ahead, making sure his phone is way out of reach for you. You didn't have the energy to run and catch up to him and honestly you would do nothing to get him but you wanted those photos gone. You walk slowly to the entrance of the dorms with Sakusa as Komori waits for you two by the doors. “Aw, you guys look cute together,” Komori comments, adding a sly wink. 

“Shut up Komori,” both you and Sakusa say at the same time but that only makes Komori laugh. 

The next day, the university team came over to your school after classes. Much of the same things were done except this time, practice was run the same way it has always been done here. Today's main focus were serves and so the boys practiced that for the majority of the practice. Of course other drills to help other skills were done as well. At the end, there was the practice match everyone looked forward to. 

“Today I want our serves to be consistent and hard to receive. Do what you must but take advantage that this is a practice match and is not a real match. If your serves aren’t working, don’t worry. Keep doing them. If you run away from the problem you’re not going to improve,” the coach advises before the start of the game. 

The starting seven head out to the court and this time a second year from your team is the referee. The set starts and a new player from your team is starting today. You recognize him as a first year and is quite shy and withdrawn. He has a couple of friends on the team but he doesn't seem to be that outgoing. He’s the first to serve and you can tell he’s really nervous. You hope he can keep his nerves in check for the serve.

“His skills are lacking as a spiker but he’s been working on his serves. I’m hoping by Nationals we can put him in as a pinch server when we need to get some points,” the coach tells you. The whistle blows and the first year takes a deep breath before tossing the ball up in the hair. He’s doing a jump serve and it’s evident as he jumps to make contact with the ball. When his hand does come into contact he absolutely hammered the ball over to the other side. 

The ball smashes onto the end line without a receiver reacting. Your whole team cheers for him and so do you of course. The ball is returned to him to do another serve and it smashes into the net nearly missing Sakusa who was surprised that it almost took out his head. 

Unlike yesterday, your team seems to be doing better. The quick attacks were pretty successful and their serve and block combinations were really good. However, you knew that the first set is just them going easy on your team. So when the second set rolled around, you hoped that your team would be able to win.

Initially, there was a four point gap between the university team and your team. The coach reminds the team to keep their heads cool and focused on the task on hand. With the next couple of plays, the receives, spikes, blocks and serves were all working well together. Sakusa quickly helps the team catch up and Iizuna throws in a dump shot that shocks the other team. By the eighteenth point, they were tied. 

Just seven more points, that’s all they needed to win this set. The university team calls for a substitution and in comes their pinch server. The guy was a bit on the shorter end but he wasn’t a libero. His hair was long and had to be tied back into a ponytail. The whistle blows and he tosses the ball up. 

His run up was shorter than what you were used to seeing but he had an enormous vertical jump. He hits the ball and it doesn’t go as fast as you thought it would. It seems like your team didn’t either as they were shuffling around to get the best spot to get the ball. 

It veers towards Komori and another player but Komori calls it and bumps it up in the air as Iizuna sets to Sakusa who scores. The server is subbed out. 

Looking at your notes, the majority of the points were scored by Sakusa. Which makes sense since he is the ace of the team and is one of the best spikers in the country not just the prefecture. It makes your heart swell a little because you’re really crushing on someone way out of your league. But the past couple days makes you think otherwise when you guys would go out on your hangouts. Even if he didn’t think so, you thought that if the two of you got together, you guys would be a great couple. You’ll treat him better than Sakurai that’s for sure. 

With a tough battle, your team did end up losing the second set and everyone is visibly tired. The rest of the day was filled with more matches and by the end of it everyone was beat.

“Man I’m exhausted!” Komori says as he exits the change room with Sakusa behind him. 

“We don’t know how many games we have to play in one day so our stamina needs to be exceptional,” says Sakusa, stuffing his hands into his pockets. Nationals were in two days and everyone was nervous. However between the two boys, they seem ready to take on the challenge. 

“Oh I have a request [l/n],” Komori says. He’s fiddling with his fingers and his face is turning red. “Since Nationals are almost here, I- well both Rin-chan and I, were thinking if it was alright if we had a sleepover in your room.” You almost choke on the air.

“I’m sorry what?” You look over at Komori who’s red in the face. Even Sakusa was surprised. 

“Just the day before Nationals. I want to spend more time with Rin-chan so I was thinking… well you know.”

“You want me to be a third wheel while you love birds sleep? Hell nah, I would rather die.”

“That’s what I thought so I was thinking that you can head over to my room and sleep there.” Sleeping in the same room with Sakusa? What’s next, some unnatural force that pulls you together with Sakusa? That condition is something you would consider.

“Excuse me?” Sakusa says scowling displeased at Komori's offer without consulting him first.

“She’ll sleep on my bed,” Komori offers. Sakusa’s eyebrows were pulled down at an intense angle. It really accentuates the two moles on his forehead. Though you were worried about the wrinkles that would appear in a couple years time. 

Sakusa is silent but Komori continues to beg him to let you stay in his room. Making stupid promises just for his approval. Though you stayed silent, who knew Komori dating Ishida would provide you so many opportunities to be with Sakusa. 

After begging Sakusa for the whole walk back to the dorms, it's something that Komori whispers into Sakusa's ear that makes him gives in. When you guys part, you don’t miss the smirk Komori gives Sakusa when they start walking up the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanna recreate a panel from the manga...


	21. Chapter Twenty One

You found yourself at Sakusa’s dorm room in your sleeping wear with a bag of things you’ll be needing for the morning. Tonight is the planned sleepover and you were beyond excited and nervous. You’ve practically become a leech for Sakusa’s attention and this gives you a prime opportunity to be with him freely. Not to mention he's always 100 times nicer to you when it's just the two of you.

You knock on the door and as expected Sakusa opens up the door and allows you in. Komori was already over at your room as he and Ishida practically kicked you out early. The sight of Sakusa in casual sportswear will always be your favourite sight. He just seems so attractive in it. 

“Do you have a problem with staring or something?” Sakusa asks as he looks at you with an annoyed expression. 

“Maybe,” you say, deciding to retort back to him as you walk into the room. As always, it's clean and tidy. He chuckles at your response, which is first off odd. “Why are you laughing?” you asked him, setting your things down on the floor. 

“Because the first time I told you to stop staring at me you looked like you were about to cry,” he says sitting down at his desk. His laptop was on the desk with a word document open. It reminds you that you should work on your paper for Japanese History class soon but soon isn’t right now. 

“You need to work on hiding your crush on me better,” he says and you roll your eyes.

“You should consider being a little nicer to me when we’re not alone,” you say and Sakusa sighs. 

“I told you already, I don’t want people knowing about us,” he says. 

“Well they already do. A couple of days Sakurai came up to me saying how you’re a really bad boyfriend and how no matter who you end up with in the future, she’ll be your best girlfriend. Ever.” Sakusa groans and presses a hand to his forehead.

“She’s such a headache I swear.” You walk past Sakusa and sit on Komori’s chair.  You chuckled slightly at his response and pulled out your phone to check the time. Maybe you should've planned for something to do as it's way too early to go to sleep even though that's all what you planned to do here.

“It’s half past eight so it’s still too early to go to sleep. Want to play a game?” you suggest, putting your phone away. Komori and Ishida love to play these little games to pass the time and sometimes they seem fun. They use to play more often when they weren't dating but it's good for getting to know someone. A small part of you wants to know a little more about Sakusa's personal life. Not like his darkest secrets or anything just little habits or quirks he has.

“What game?” he asks.

“Truth or dare?” 

“We are not getting this room messy in any way shape or form.”

“Would you rather?” 

“It’s only good for the first three rounds.”

“20 Questions?”

“Too long.” You sighed, Sakusa is hard to please. 

“How about never have I ever?” This time he agrees. You don’t hide your shock but he tells you that it’s a quicker game and nothing will get messy. You urge him to start. Holding your hands out you wait for him to do the same as he thinks of a scenario.

“Never have I ever….” he pauses to think. “Obviously display my crush on someone that they found out,” he smirks. This cheeky bastard.

“You’re so mean!” you complain as you put down a finger. He tells you it’s your turn.

“Never have I ever lied to make myself seem better but was forced to prove it.” Neither of you put a finger down. “Really?” you ask him and he glares at you accusingly.

“I never lie about my abilities. If they think I’m lying I’ll stuff it into their faces that I can. The best part is the face they make when I prove them wrong,” he responds with some pride laced into his voice. “Never have I ever snuck out.”

You lower a finger. When you were in around grade five, you were grounded for a really crappy grade on your math test. But, after dinner your friends called you to play outside and so you climbed out a window to play with them. You did end up getting caught by your dad though. 

“Never have I ever broken a bone.” Sakusa lowers his finger. He tells you about the time he fell down the stairs of his apartment when he was six and broke his arm. 

“Is that why your wrist is so flexible?” you jokingly ask but he doesn’t catch it.

“No it’s always been flexible. Besides it was my forearm that broke not my wrist. Never have I ever gotten into a fist fight.” A verbal fight yes you have gotten into but not a fist fight. You weren't one for violence and frankly, despite thinking you can pull some martial arts move you've seen from movies, you doubt you'll be able to win a physical fight. Maybe you should ask Kimura for some judo lessons.

The game lasts quite a while and by the time that you guys finish it’s well into nine o’clock. You lost the game while Sakusa still had four fingers left. You laugh at him for being boring but still you propose to play another game but Sakusa refuses.

“I don’t know about you but I would like to head to bed early so I’m rested for our game tomorrow. You can do as you like but keep the noise level dow-” Sakusa says before the room goes dark. You open the window to see raining pouring down outside along with some thunder and lightning. None of the other dorm lights were on either as Sakusa opened the door to see the emergency hallway lights on.

“Power outage,” you say and Sakusa nods. You were planning on doing some homework (or not, but you did bring it to make it seem like you were going to do something productive) but without any lights you supposed that it would be better off going to sleep. 

Bidding Sakusa good night you climbed the stairs of the bunk beds and crawled your way over to the pillows. It felt somewhat weird that you weren’t sleeping in your own bed. It feels even weirder that you’re sleeping in Ishida’s boyfriend’s bed. The thought of it makes you want to hurl. You just hope they’re not having any sex on your bed because that is truly your worse nightmare. 

You laid awake for hours not being able to fall asleep. You were too scared to toss and turn because that might either wake Sakusa up or annoy him. You didn’t feel like being on the receiving end of his wrath tonight. You end up falling asleep hours later as your mind seems to be tired of doing anything and thought that now was the best time to go to sleep.

Next you were being shaken awake. Was it time to get ready? The room was still pretty dark so it must be too early? 

“Hey, you’re shaking the whole bed. Are you cold?” Sakusa whispers quietly. He’s standing on his mattress so that his shoulders are above the rail that prevents people sleeping on the top bunk to fall off. 

When he mentions it, you notice that you’re actually shivering. You can still hear the rain fall outside and now a gush of cold air is blowing onto your face. You sit up and it’s slightly warmer. A vent has been blowing on your face all night and it’s starting to blow cold air out. Maybe the heater was broken.

“I think it's the vent on the ceiling. It’s blowing cold air out,” you whisper to Sakusa who reaches a hand out to feel the air that’s blowing out from the vent. 

“What do you want to do? You’re shaking up the whole bed and I can’t sleep,” Sakusa says and you don’t know what to do. You shrug.

“Do you want us to switch? You can sleep in my bed and I’ll sleep here if you want,” Sakusa suggests. You don’t respond, you’re too tired to process anything and you’re practically dozing off sitting upright. It’s quiet again and you don’t know if Sakusa left but he speaks up again. “Or do you want to sleep with me? I can bring down Komori’s blanket and toss it over you if you’re going to be warmer.”

Again you don’t say anything because your mind completely shut down into a quick nap before you hear Sakusa groan in agitation. You hear him jump off his bed and from the corner of your eye, see him climbing the ladder. “Hey, wake up,” he shakes your leg and you look up at him. “Come down, you can sleep with me,” he says, slightly hesitantly. It's too dark to actually see his face. If you were wide awake though, you would be a complete blushing mess, your mind would be coming up with scenarios that are too impossible to happen. But this is happening right? 

You listen and walk down the ladder and stand in the middle of the room like you’re possessed or something. Sakusa pulls the blankets from Komori’s bed and climbs down the ladder. “No wonder you’re cold, he still has his summer sheets,” Sakusa says. “Go, you’re sleeping on the inside."

You climb into his bed and it’s significantly warmer. His blanket is thick and soft as well. When you tuck yourself in, Sakusa throws Komori’s blanket over you before climbing in. The bed is only a twin sized bed so the two of you on one bed is a tight squeeze and you know how hard Sakusa must be trying to not touch you. So you snuggle closer to the wall hoping that it will give him more room. 

Closing your eyes, you noticed Sakusa tossing and turning until he got in the most comfortable position. Even though your mind was lagged and sleepy, you were still aware of the situation you were in. Did all the forces of nature change your destiny to allow you to be in this moment right now? 

What you definitely notice is how much warmer it is on the lower bunk. You didn't feel the air and with Sakusa's blanket, it's really cozy. You slept on the lower bunk in your room but for some reason it feels a little bit different when it’s someone else's. Especially since that someone else is literally right behind you sleeping as you think. 

You force yourself to go to sleep and thankfully you do eventually fall asleep. 

“My! My! Never would I have thought this would happen!” someone says very loudly. The light from the windows reflects on to the wall. You hear a groan from behind you which instantly makes you blush. What’s more you feel an arm over your abdomen and someone’s breathing on your neck. Holy mother of Jesus, you really slept with Sakusa and somehow he’s cuddling you. 

You swear you sleep like a dead log and you don’t move so some time during the night Sakusa must’ve moved in his sleep and you guys ended up like this! 

“Why are you so loud?” Sakusa croaks and he pulls you closer subconsciously. Your face burns red with him hugging you and you finally speak up when you’re literally almost unable to breathe.

“Sakusa,” you say and he immediately releases you and you can feel the bed shift quickly. Turning you see Sakusa out of the bed crouched by the side of the desk, face so red that you think he’s going to pass out. All you can hear is Komori laughing his head off by the ladder of the bed.

“You guys, HA, are, HA, I can’t even,” Komori could barely talk between his laughter. Sakusa uses hands covering his super red face. You instead, use the covers to cover your face. To say you’re beyond embarrassed sleeping with Sakusa is one thing, then him cuddling you is another. But being caught by Komori! Oh lord why can’t he end you now? 

“I’ll let you two lovers get ready. The bus is arriving in two hours so make sure you’re not late. I don’t want to explain why!” Komori says teasingly as he takes a tooth brush and leaves the room.

Both you and Sakusa looked at each other and came to the same conclusion.

“We will not speak of this outside of this room!” 


	22. Chapter Twenty Two

The whole team was waiting outside at 7:00AM waiting for the bus to pull into the parking lot so you guys can board and head off to the gym for Nationals. You were a mix of emotions but the strongest ones were definitely nervousness and embarrassment. 

You and Sakusa haven’t spoken about what happened last night and I don’t think the two of you will. He stands very far from you and frankly away from the crowd. Maybe it’s for the better since you know you’ll be anything but normal around him. Even with the distance you can't help but wander back to what happened last night. You thought about him and the way he hugged you. Despite knowing it was purely unintentional, you secretly wish that it was intentional.

Luckily the bus arrives before your legs give up on you and the team boards the bus. Staying behind, you count everyone that goes in to make sure everyone was there before you boarded. It appears no one wants to be late for Nationals.

“What are you doing here?” You ask Komori who has taken your seat. 

“I thought you might want to sit in mine,” Komori says with a cheeky smile. You look a couple seats down to see the empty seat next to Sakusa. 

“No. Go back to your seat I want mine,” you tell him but Komori puts in his earbuds to ignore you. The advisor and coach climbs on and you know you have to sit down before they yell at you for not doing so. Reluctantly, you walked further down and sat down beside Sakusa with all eyes on you. God you hate that everyone on this bus probably knows what’s up between you and Sakusa.

“What are you doing here?” Sakusa asks and you chuckle as that’s the exact same thing you asked Komori.

“Komori took my spot and told me to go sit here,” you respond, placing your bag by your feet. 

“And you didn’t tell him to move?” 

“I did. Except he decided to put his music in and ignore me.” Sakusa doesn’t respond back to that. In fact, he doesn’t say anything for the rest of the bus ride. Thank god for the short bus ride because you don’t think you could do another minute. The memory of sleeping with Sakusa is something out of a fairytale. It was so improbable to happen that you’re now confusing it with a dream even though it really did happen. Though something is for sure.  This may be affecting Sakusa more than you. He’s noticeably more shy around you and he’s red in the face whenever he talks to you. He’s also avoiding you a lot more. Maybe it’s for the best as he needs to play his absolute best. 

Walking towards the gym you finally start to feel the pressure. The pressure of not only that your team is probably one of the most well known high schools at Nationals but that there’s also the pressure of wanting to be reigning champions. 

Whispers filled the room as you guys go find a spot to put down all of your stuff. Was this the regular thing? Your old school wasn’t that great of a team so they never made it to the quarterfinals but Itachiyama was definitely of a different league. 

The coach tells the team of the schedule and tells everyone to head towards the lobby for the opening ceremony. Iizuna was given a sign that read: “Tokyo. Itachiyama Academy” on it. From what you heard, the opening ceremony was going to signify the start of the games. In their jerseys, the boys line up waiting for them to be called. Sakusa clearly does not want to be there as he hides himself away before Komori has to literally drag him to the line. 

The opening ceremony went well and washed some nerves out of the system. There were a lot of reporters around interviewing different players. The main players on your team who were being asked to be interviewed were Komori and Sakusa since they are one of the top players in the country and Iizuna who’s the captain of the team. 

You did find it funny how Sakusa tried to run from every reporter but Komori or Iizuna had to pull him back and scold him for being disrespectful. You stayed with the rest of the team by the stands and watching some of the games. Like Interhigh, your team wasn’t included with the first round of games but you guys were playing off against the representatives of a northern prefecture.

“Oh you guys are back,” you said as Komori and Sakusa came back from answering some interview questions. You were sitting in the stadium watching Shiratorizawa's match. True to Sakusa's words, Ushijima was one hell of a player. He scored points left and right and no one seemed to be able to block him. Settling down beside you, Komori tells you about how he’s never going to get used to being interviewed.  Sakusa mutters something but you don’t capture the saying. However, just when you were about to ask him to repeat it, Komori interrupts instead. 

“You’re going to keep our promise right?” Komori says and Sakusa looks like he’s going to murder him. 

“What promise?” you ask. You know it’s being nosy but like you were curious and couldn’t help yourself. Did they make some sort of promise before the opening ceremony?

“Well Sakusa and I made a promise that if we win nati-” Komori says before Sakusa uses his bag to slam into Komori’s face. His face is super red and you’re optimally confused. 

“If we win Nationals…” you dragged on, trying to get either one of them to finish. 

“Shut up Komori. It’s nothing. Don’t be nosy [l/n]. It’s none of your business,” Sakusa says, irritated but the redness in his face doesn't die down. 

“Well actually it is a bit of her business-” Komori says before Sakusa drags him away towards the captain and returns. 

“Forget everything he says. Don’t worry yourself about stuff between us,” Sakusa says.

“Isn’t that more of your problem since I still don’t know what it is.”

Sakusa pulls the top of his jacket up to cover his already covered face. He sported his infamous mask that he claims he can't go into public without. His eyes are intently glued on the game in front of him but you can tell he’s using it as a distraction. But you notice when people were passing by you and Sakusa, they were giving you guys a shocked look and it made you really uncomfortable. You know they’re probably more shocked at seeing Sakusa than you. After all, capturing a glimspe of a guy who's name is plastered all over the wall of Nationals as one of the best spikers (metaphorically plastered of course) was something to gawk at. But it still made you feel weird. 

“[l/n]! Sakusa! The game is almost over, let’s get ready for warmups!” Iizuna calls out and you grab your bags and head over to the rest of your team. As you walk towards them you realize something. Why weren’t you sitting with them? It’s weird now that you think about it, you never sat with the rest of the team in the stadium. You always sat off by yourself with either Sakusa or Komori usually. Why did you do that? Is it to be like Sakusa? Or for him to notice that you’re like him? Argh, why are you even thinking about it like that? 

You can feel your face beginning to flush a little and you force yourself to stop thinking about Sakusa.

“Thinking about Sakusa?” Komori whispers into your ear and you flinch.

“N-No! I’m not thinking about… You know who!” you say as your face is getting redder and hotter. Komori laughs.

“Still thinking about last night? You know, you’re welcome for making that happen to you guys,” Komori says smugly.

“What do you mean you’re welcome?” you say accusingly. 

“Seemed like you guys were nice and toasty when I came back.” Jesus you wanted to shut Komori up. 

“Don’t talk about it,” you groan.

“But don’t worry [l/n]. We will win Nationals,” Komori says with a smile that seems really genuine. Now curiosity really got you. What was their promise? Did it involve you or are you just being selfish? Does this have something to do with you and Sakusa or you’re slowly going insane because of how much you like him and how long this infatuation has dragged on. 

The first game was an easy win for your team as they won in straight sets. It was no surprise that they would win after all the hard work they went through. You handed the team their water and towels before grabbing the stuff on the bench in order to clear out of the court. 

“Good job guys!” Ishida calls out when you guys exit the gym. 

“What are you doing here?” you ask as you run up to her to hug her. 

“What do you mean what am I doing here?” Ishida laughs. It was nice to see Ishida come and support the team. Perhaps half of it was because of Komori but it’s still nice that she came with her broken foot. 

“Hey guys!” Kimura calls out carrying some food. Beside her was Uchiyama which is unexpected. “Uchiyama said the basketball season is over so I dragged her here.” You thank Uchiyama for coming and smiling at Kimura. She seemed to be getting along with Uchiyama at lot more. Kimura tells you about what happens between them and you're excited for her.

“Why are there so many people here,” Sakusa says behind you. He’s clearly not pleased with the crowding of people. He stands behind you for a moment before disappearing off somewhere muttering something about the crowd is giving him a headache. 

“So how’s it going with,” Kimura asks, tilting her head towards where Sakusa walked off.

“It’s, um, going well.” You know your face is turning red but you can’t help it. It’s going a lot better since the talk with her at lunch. In fact so much happened between you two that you’re starting to wonder if Sakusa sees you differently now. He told you after your first movie hangout that he likes you but not enough to date you. Dating aside, does he like you more or less since then?

Kimura smiles at you with an ‘oh really’ face as she snacks on some of the food she bought from the stands. Komori comes and takes Ishida over to the spectator's area to watch some of the remaining games and Uchiyama states that she wanted to check out some of the merchandise so Kimura accompanied her. This left you all by yourself.

Deciding it was best for you to go where the team placed their stuff to drop off the bags you were holding, that's exactly where you headed off to. Your feelings are a mess lately due to Sakusa. When it’s the two of you he acts one way and when you guys are with other people he acts another way. You wish he would be a little more consistent just so you can read him a little easier. He told you how he felt about you but you keep doubting his words because he can’t possibly like you as much as you do right? No, scratch that. What chance did you have with him anyways? It's all just a stupid little crush that has been messing with you all this time.


	23. Chapter Twenty Three

Never in your life have you ever been approached by a guy who asked you for your number. Ever. You didn’t particularly think you were beautiful or pretty but you know that you went ugly per se. Just average. Some days you feel you’re on top of the world and other you want to rip out your hair. However, life didn’t cease to amaze you. 

“Hey Itachiyama’s manager!” someone calls out to you. You turn around to see a player from another team approach you. You never heard of their team or seen them.

“Hi, do you need something?” you ask him while smiling to at least look polite. 

“Yeah!” he grins widely. “Your number!” 

Huh? “My what?” you say, hoping he did say that you thought you heard.

“Your number! I think you’re pretty cute so I wanted to see if I could get your number!” 

“Um, no you can’t have my number.” 

“Please? Or I can give you mine?” He was really persistent and you were feeling more and more uncomfortable by the second. You started walking away towards your team’s spot but he’s following you now.  The longer you walk, the more people around you begin to stop and watch you try and get rid of this guy trying to get your number. You can feel the eyes of the spectators and no doubt they were paying attention because of your bright yellow and green track jacket the team provided. It’s so eye catching you can’t miss it. 

“Look. I’m not giving you my number so can you please leave me alone?” you tell the guy. He smiles and shakes his head insisting that he will leave you alone once he gets your number. At this point you were considering giving him your number just so he’ll leave you alone. You’ll block him so he won’t be able to message you or whatever. 

“She’s not interested. Beat it.”

“S-Sakusa!” the guy says in horror that seems way too fake to be real. You turn around to see Sakusa looming behind you, sporting his face mask and probably the meanest look you have ever seen him wear. 

“Why can’t you leave her alone? Are you incapable of accepting rejection? Or are you overly confident that you think you can get anyone’s number? Did you even ask if she’s taken?” It’s like nostalgia when Sakusa drills these questions into the guy much like how he did when you first became manager. “It’s people like you who I despise the most. Not being able to take rejection is just a sorry excuse for being weaker than you already are.”

“A-Ah, um, are you taken, miss?” he asks. And your mind starts to panic for a response before Sakusa steps in front of you. 

“Are you hard headed? Out of everything I said that’s the only thing you remember? You disgust me. She told you she wasn’t giving you her number.” Sakusa says in an annoyed tone. He glares at the guy silently and a tight, yet awkward, tension is created as the guy glared back. It was like a competition to see who would back down first.

“Whatever!” the guy is obviously pissed and embarrassed now. “We’re going to beat you and win Nationals!” he declares before storming away. The back of his jacket reads “MATSUBARA VBC” which reminds you to take a mental note of remembering that name to see if you play them at all. If you do, you’re going to tell the team to absolutely destroy them.

“Are you okay?” Sakusa asks you, lowering his mask. His eyes seemed so much gentler than when he was talking to the Matsubara guy. You don't know if the reason he's kind of pink in the face is because of being the centre of attention in that situation or it's because he still hasn't cooled down from the match they just played. Or a completely different reason that you can't think of. 

You nod in response, telling that you’re okay and that he luckily didn’t put his hands on you. You tell Sakusa that you were going to the team’s spot and he tells you that he’ll walk you there in case another “predator” comes to bother you.

“You shouldn’t be walking around by yourself here. It’s unjustly crowded and no one has a sense of order. Things like this were just waiting to happen if you’re walking around by yourself,” Sakusa scolds you but you weren’t in the mood to refute him so you remain silent and just nod slightly. Once you guys get to the spot where all the team’s bags were placed, you sit down with your head in your arms. 

It never feels good to be scolded, especially about something that you can’t control. It wasn’t your fault a lot of people come to watch the national high school volleyball tournament. It wasn’t your fault that the Matsubara guy won’t leave you alone after telling him you weren’t interested. It wasn’t your fault that-

“Hey, are you okay?” You look at Sakusa who asked you, interrupting your thoughts. You don’t know how to respond to him. Nothing makes sense to you anymore. 

Taking a deep breath, you sit and stare at the lights illuminating the courts. You’re honestly so tired right now. The Matsubara definitely contributed a memory you don’t want to remember. And Sakusa implying that it was your fault for being asked for your number makes you so irritated but your heart is acting foolish as you can’t stay mad at him for long.

“Are you mad because of what happened or because of what I said to you?” 

“Both…” you mutter quietly and you hear Sakusa sighing. 

“I’m sorry, I was just overwhelmed about how that guy couldn’t get a hint that you weren’t interested.” There was no one around the area so you took a look at him. He’s looking at the floor, his chin rests on his knees. 

“Hey, if we play against his team, can you guys win with an overwhelming victory. I want him to get a taste of what our team is truly capable of,” you ask Sakusa. He looks at you and smiles.

“Of course.”

The games the next day were just as easy as the first day which sort of surprises you. These should be the best teams in all of Japan but why does it seem like your team was winning like it was nobody’s business? None of the other teams seemed to pose much of a challenge to you guys.

“Hey Sakusa, isn’t this the team that the guy was on?” you ask Sakusa as you guys look at the teams that were still in the tournament. So far, Sakusa is the only one who knows about what happened yesterday and you prefer it that way. 

“Yeah it appears to be,” he says, walking off, announcing he was going to get some fresh air. It seems that Matsubara had just lost their second game. So much for vowing to beat us. So now you guys had to play against their opponents, whoever they were.

You had no doubt that your team was going to win. They’ve been on an amazing winning streak with no third sets being played yet. 

“Hey Komori can you watch my stuff? I’m gonna use the bathroom quickly,” you say, handing him your bag. Komori agrees and takes your stuff as you run to the washroom. Where you guys were, the washroom is a level below the floor the team was as you were all in the spectators area. 

Running down the stairs, you definitely did not expect to see Sakurai there. Didn’t she say she was done with Sakusa? Why would she come watch his games? 

“I can be better! We can be better! We can make this work!” you hear her say. You hang around the bottom of the stairs, taking a small peak just around the corner to see who she was talking to. 

“I promise! We were a little bit broken before but this time we can be better! Because… I guess after all this time, I still love you,” she says looking down at the floor. The person who she was talking to, is probably the person you didn’t want it to be but knew that it couldn’t be anyone else. Sakusa stood there, hands in his pocket and mask on. Sakurai was talking to Sakusa.


	24. Chapter Twenty Four

You stayed where you were, afraid that they would see you. A million thoughts ran through your mind about what was being unfolded in front of you. You thought Sakurai was done with Sakusa. You thought that she didn’t care about him anymore. But why is she begging him to get back together? Was there something you were missing? 

“We’re done and we’re over. I’m not getting back together with you,” Sakusa says sternly with no hint of backing down. You’re sitting on the stairs, eavesdropping on their conversation. You didn’t care about who saw you, and most definitely didn’t care if they thought you were crazy.

“But I still love you! I tried to move on but I just can’t. You mean too much to me and I just, I just need you to be with me.” Every word she said practically stabbed you in the heart. She told she was done with him! She said so many things behind his back and now she's begging to get back with him? What is this world that you lived in? Why can't she pick a side and stay there?

“But I don’t love you and I definitely don’t need you.”

“There’s time, I can help you. We can be a couple again.”

“You know what us being a couple did to me?” Sakusa says irritatedly. “You made me loath every interaction we had. You used the society accepted norms about relationships and forced them onto me when I clearly told you multiple times that I wasn’t comfortable. I told you that I needed things to go slow but you went ahead and pushed that aside and did what you wanted. I felt used and abused by you. You know how many times I went to bed with thoughts that I wanted our relationship to end but you just couldn’t get it? How many times I went to bed and cried myself to sleep because I knew I had to face you again? I never want to see you again. You made me terrified to get into another relationship even though I’m in love with someone else.” You knew Sakusa and Sakurai fought a lot but this is the first time you heard them actually fight. But hearing Sakusa tell Sakurai all the damage she caused in their relationship what it did to him made your heart hurt. He was suffering and now Sakurai is back and trying to get him back.

But one part sticks out to you. He said that he was afraid to get back into a relationship even though he was in love with someone. You knew he wasn’t fond of getting involved with a relationship again but him declaring he’s in love with someone is new. It was so uncharacteristic of him. Komori never mentioned it either and neither has anyone else from the team. Sakusa isn't open about his feelings and you'd assume that romantic ones would be stored deep down and will never surface. He has told you that he liked you but not enough to get into a relationship with you. But he mean it as a friend or something more? You don't get into relationships with your friends though. Maybe he's referring to you. Or maybe you're way too far up your fantasy. 

You reflect back on all your interactions with Sakusa. He’s really nice when it’s just the two of you, he keeps his promises, he texts you as often as he could, he helped you get rid the Matusbara guy and he opens up to you about himself. But when you guys are with other people, he dissociates himself from you, he’s really blunt and sometimes rude, he doesn’t seem to pay much attention to you and it seems like he doesn’t care sometimes. Argh, all this is going to hurt your head. 

Wrapped up in your own thoughts, you didn’t hear the rest of the conversation. Maybe it’s for the best. You’re way too caught up in your own thoughts that you don’t want to hear who Sakusa’s in love with. Especially if it’s someone else because it’ll just make you feel like a self-centred prick who thinks the whole world revolves around them. 

You got up and just walked over to the washroom without seeing if they were still there or not. It doesn’t matter, you’ll just finish your business there and just focus on the games. If they see you, you'll just lie about not hearing their conversation and act oblivious. 

When you left the washroom, you took a look around and didn’t see Sakusa or Sakurai there. Maybe it was a good thing. Walking back upstairs you see Komori at the top of the stairs. “I was going to say, what’s taking you so long?” he says with a huge smile. You force a smile of your own.

“Sorry, there was a line up at the washroom,” you lie as you take your bag from Komori’s arm. The two of you walked back towards the team who were getting ready to play their next game. You see Sakusa there gathering up his things and it hurts you a little.

“You know you suck at lying,” Komori says quietly and you’re surprised. Usually you got away with lying. Does Komori have a lying detection ability or something? “I heard Sakurai was here. Is that why you took so long?” 

“No comment. But let’s go, we have a game and I want us to stay winners,” you say, pushing Komori ahead of you trying to avoid any questions he may have. Heading into the court, the boys got warmed up while you helped the advisor take notes on the players of the other team. Soon enough, the game got started. 

You couldn’t really focus on the game due to the conversation between Sakurai and Sakusa earlier. Why is she back? Everything was so much better when she wasn’t in the picture. 

“Itachiyama number 10, Sakusa Kiyoomi, scores another clean point! He seems to be in top notch shape today!” you hear the commentator say into the microphone. For being so pissed earlier, he seems to be playing really well. Do these things not affect him? 

After this game, it will be the quarterfinals. Unlike the other games, there wasn’t a large point gap that gave your team a certain victory. You started to become more nervous once you noticed that and when your team seems to be struggling with receiving the other team’s serves.  The other team managed to swipe the first set from your team which is the first time you have seen this at this tournament. The boys don’t seem too pleased about it either. 

“We’ll win the next two sets. We will win Nationals,” Iizuna says and the team agrees. The coach smiles before reminding them of a couple of notes. 

This game definitely shook you to the core. Itachiyama managed to win the second set and both teams were significantly tired. During the third set, you look up at your school’s cheer squad and see Sakurai with her group of friends up in the stands watching. It lights a small fit of rage seeing her but you stopped yourself. When have you become like this? She hasn’t actually done anything malicious to you but you clearly don’t like her. Is this all because of your feelings for Sakusa? That she had a chance to be something with Sakusa but blew it. That she was the one who had something with Sakusa to hold above your head? 

You forcibly ignored her and focused on the game. You watched each play intently because there’s only so much you can do on the bench. However, you went from watching each player to just watching Sakusa. Despite how unbothered he looks whenever he plays, there’s always a look of passion whenever he plays. He clearly loves the sport and that’s what makes it so much more worthwhile watching him play.

But you take your eyes off of him and watch wherever the ball goes because you can practically hear him tell you to stop staring at him and in a public court, it’s best that no one actually notices you looking at him. 

The third set comes to a close in your team's victory. It’s a tight victory but it’s a win. Your team is advancing to the quarterfinals. And when you guys play in the quarterfinals, the conversation between Sakusa and Sakurai becomes a distant memory. And soon enough, your team managed to win their semi-final match and will be playing against Inarizaki in the finals for the national champion title.


	25. Chapter Twenty Five

All of last night, you had trouble sleeping. You didn’t know if it was nervousness or excitement that kept you awake but knowing your team was going to be playing in the finals was something you couldn’t even describe. You were proud of them no doubt. When you met up with the boys in the hotel lobby, it was clear that they had trouble sleeping too. However, you guys had to make due with the amount of sleep you all had. 

The gymnasium was packed today with everyone wanting to see which school will come out as the high school volleyball national champion. Everyone looked like a walking set of nerves, well everyone except Sakusa. He doesn’t seem to be nervous at all which you’re completely and utterly baffled by. He hasn't told you about his conversation with Sakurai and you highly doubt he would. After all, why would he tell you about something that doesn’t involve you. 

“Okay guys, Inarizaki has quite a line up. They have their number four, Aran who has been shown to be able to spike above blocks and not to mention, he’s a top five spiker. Time your blocks right and get them as high as possible. Their number ten, Suna, is a very hyper aware blocker. He tends to use his torso to spike so shift your blocks to cover his right arm. And the Miya twins go without saying. Watch out for their combinations and quicks. We don’t know what they have in store for us so I want one person to do a commit block on Osamu. Let’s make sure our serves are strong and our receives are stable. I have no doubt that this team will be able to win and take home the gold,” the coach says when the team is huddled around. 

The air was tight and you swore your heart was beating as fast and hard as the boys. You hold onto your clipboard tightly with your notebook and mini court white board. You contemplate on wishing Sakusa good luck but you know he doesn’t need you to say it. Heck, you know he’s going to tell you something along the lines of “luck doesn’t define the success of a person, if you put in hard work and effort, the results will appear in its truest form.”

Iizuna returns from the coin toss saying that Inarizaki will be serving first. The coach reminds the team about Miya Atsumu’s jump serves before the whistle blows for the game to begin. 

You take your spot on the bench, watching the team stand in their starting positions. Your eyes immediately drift to Sakusa who’s glaring at Miya Atsumu who seems so carefree during warm ups. He looks over at you and his gaze turns into a confused one as if he was telling you to stop staring. Always you with the staring. The game begins and Miya Atsumu silences the crowd with a hand gesture a conductor would use to halt the orchestra. 

Miya Atsumu tosses the ball up into the air and practically drills it through air. Komori managed to pick it up but even you could tell that the receive was shaky. You hope Komori can get used to Miya Atsumu's serves quickly. 

“Sorry! Cover!” he shouts and Iizuna gets under the ball and sets it to Sakusa who spikes a clean line shot. The crowd goes wild and you smile, giving Sakusa a thumbs up when he looks at you. Even though he had just scored the first point, Sakusa stays level headed and avoids some oncoming high fives. Miya Atsumu throws a small fit on the other side to which his twin brother comments on. You didn’t hear what he said but Miya Atsumu clearly didn’t like it.

All throughout the match, you watched the game eyeing one in particular. He was so focused on the game that it really inspired you. He loves the game so much that this is no doubt his happy place. All his worries and insecurities were drowned away when he played. It makes your heart race as if you were actually running. You were amazed but a small part of you wished that you can make him that happy too. 

The first set was won by your team and it definitely boosted the overall team’s morale. Watching the set, you can tell why Inarizaki is so good. Their setter Miya Atsumu is a really good setter and plus, his twin brother makes a crazy good back up. Not to mention they could easily switch roles and pull off a quick with an uneasy receive. Their ace, Aran can spike any set and Suna is such a pain to block against. 

You hand the team some water and a towel as you guys transition to the other side of the court. Just one more set, one more set and you guys will be champions. “Let’s keep this streak going guys!” Iizuna says, exuding his captain composure. 

“Send your tosses to me, I’ll make sure they score,” Sakusa says and even if you didn’t say it, the whole team felt Sakusa’s confidence ooze out.

“And I’ll cover your backs!” Komori adds proudly with a goofy smile. The seriousness in the air lightens up and some smiles begin to spread across some faces. 

“Let’s become national champs!” you say cheerfully and the team cheers, heading back out to the court. Just one more set and you will all be winners, you just couldn’t wait. 

The set flew by in a blur despite having longer rallies and needed to play much longer than the usual 25 points a regular set would call for if the opponents weren’t one point away. Everything felt like slow motion as you watched the ball fly from Sakusa’s hand and ricochet from the blocker’s hand and out behind them. It was as if time stopped and the stadium froze. But not another moment later the whole stadium erupts and cheers at the finished game. 

“SAKUSA KIYOOMI! SCORING THE LAST POINT MAKING ITACHIYAMA ACADEMY THIS YEAR’S NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!” the commentator shouts but is drowned out by the team running over to the players on the court and tackling them down. Sakusa skillfully avoids them and walks back over to the bench with you. On the other side, Inarizaki was solemn, having lost the chance to become champions. It was a well played game and either team could’ve won. 

“Congratulations,” you say to Sakusa as you hand him his water bottle and a towel. A stoic expression on his face despite winning Nationals but he accepts the water and towel.

“Thanks,” he says, meeting your eyes before quickly averting them. You could’ve sworn he smiled a little bit there before he turned away. The team lines up and bows to their respective crowds. But maybe it’s because of the adrenaline of the boys winning or the light is playing tricks on your eyes, but it seems like Sakusa is glancing at you every so often. 

The awards ceremony was long and boring but it was worth watching the boys get their gold medals. Then came the individual awards of which Miya Atsumu managed to snatch two of them, best setter and server. He was a monster of a player and is frankly, well deserved. He’ll definitely be a challenge when you guys face him again.

“We should have a celebratory dinner!” someone from the team suggests and many agreed. The coach laughed.

“You think we would come all this way and not reward you guys for your hard work?” he says chuckling. “Of course we’re having a celebratory dinner! Who wants some ramen?!” he announces and the boys all cheer happily. 

You feel your jacket being tugged and you turn to see Sakusa with his mask on. He changed out of his jersey but for some reason, his face is sort of red. Is he still tired from the game? But it was about an hour ago, he must’ve cooled down by then.

“He-Hey, can I uh talk to you?” he says quietly. He looks at the team and around the area before adding on, “in private.” The shakiness in his voice is present and you can’t help but think he’s nervous. But what for? He just won Nationals. Wait hold on, he wasn't even nervous before the match. Why is he nervous now?

You were on edge, you never liked being confronted because you suddenly feel anxious about what they’re going to say. In Sakusa’s case, it could be anything and the feeling of not knowing swallows you up.  Sakusa leads you to a quiet and empty place in the gymnasium. It was a hall filled with pictures of V. League teams here. You guys stand in the middle of the hall in between pictures of Schweiden Adlers and MSBY Black Jackals. 

“Komori and I made a promise,” Sakusa starts off. You remember the promise, but you don’t know what it was about. Komori mentioned that you were involved but how so? 

“Yeah, something about winning Nationals,” you tell him and he nods as he sticks his hands in his pockets and starts to pull down on it. It was a habit you noticed. Whenever he felt tense, he would pull on his jacket from the pockets. Komori told you that a while ago about it and you’ve only associated it with Sakusa not being comfortable in a new place.

“Yeah, I’ll tell you what was promised was but before that, I need to tell you something else first,” Sakusa says as he lowers his mask. “You see, the other day, Sakurai came and spoke to me.” You nod along, you know exactly that they talked about. But you don’t think he knows that you knew. Maybe you should tell him. Or would that ruin everything?

“She said she wanted to get back with me,” Sakusa says and you can tell that Sakusa doesn't want to dwell on it very long. “I told her I didn’t want to.” He didn’t waste any time telling you that.

“Yeah, it makes sense after all of what you had to go through with her,” you tell him because you didn’t know what else to say. You had no idea where this conversation was going and anticipation keeps swallowing you up. 

Sakusa nods. “I told her she's the reason why I can't feel comfortable being in a relationship anymore. There was something else but I'll tell you the promise Komori and I had.” You knew exactly what he was talking about. The part where he said he was in love with someone. Was he planning to use you to help him talk to the person he’s in love with? Is that why you’re involved with the promise? Just to use you? Why have you been so blind?! Or was it you that he’s in love with? But that can’t be, who would fall in love with you in the first place, never mind Sakusa. The duality of your thoughts makes you want to pull your hair out.

“The promise I had with Komori was that if we won Nationals, I would have to try and ask a certain person if they would be willingly to be in a relationship with me so I can face my ‘irrational fear’.” Sakusa takes a deep breath and it takes him a while to say something but when he does, he looks you straight in the eyes. 

“I, really, really like you. I’ve felt that way for a while now. And in truth, I’m the only person holding us apart. I knew you liked me way before I told you I knew and I guess that knowledge is probably the only reason I have any confidence to do this. When I realized that I might have a crush on you, I started to notice everything you did. I really liked being with you and you respected me. Next thing I knew, I didn’t want to be just friends with you anymore.” He takes a step towards you as his voice quiets down.

“For the first time, I didn’t care about how many times you washed your hands before touching my things. I didn’t care if you wore your clothes two days in a row before sitting on my chair. I wanted to hold you close to me and do stupid couple things like holding your hand. Hell, even I can’t even grasp that whole thing because with anyone else, if I detect some sort of dirt or grime it automatically makes me want to throw up. You make my mind go crazy and I don’t know what to do. But there’s one thing that I do want to do… or ask. [l/n]-san, I know I’m probably the worst person to be with but if I push my fears aside, will you,” Sakusa says, cutting himself short. You’re shocked beyond words so you stand silently in front of him. 

“Will you let me be your boyfriend?” he asks, barely above a whisper that you almost missed it. Sakusa definitely doesn’t seem the type to confess first but with how obvious your feelings for him are you might as well have confessed months ago. But knowing you liked him, it seems to have given him more than just some confidence. It gave him reassurance. This moment is literally the moment you’ve been hoping for ever since you realized you liked him. All the confusion you felt about him clears up and you’re finally left with just a clear answer.

“I’d be stupid to like you for this long and not know what you’d be like as a boyfriend,” you say shyly looking at the ground because you know you won’t be able to take it if you look him in the eye. 

You see his hand reach out hesitantly, he pulls his sleeve down to cover his hand but he reaches out and touches your hand. He pulls you closer towards him as he slowly raises his other arm. He wraps his arm around you in a light hug where you guys are barely touching.  You look at him in the face. Another day he would’ve told you to stop staring but today he lets you look at him and he looks at you too. You two were no longer friends. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi all! this chapter concludes this little story and i thank you all for reading :D  
> i'm thankful for all the wonderful comments you guys left on this story so i'm grateful
> 
> there is a small epilogue that will be posted tomorrow however it is slightly spoilery (you need to read past chapter 377 i believe) and frankly is very irrelevant to this main plot line. just a little "what happened after" type chapter. 
> 
> again, thank you all for reading this story and a big thank you to those who read this story from the beginning and have been patiently waiting for the next chapter!
> 
> until next time :)


	26. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please note that this will contain small spoilers from the manga  
> if you haven't read up to at least chapter 377, then I'd advise you to read them first to avoid spoilers
> 
> unless of course, you don't really care about spoilers :)

The stadium in Sendai was packed with people wanting to watch the Adlers play against the Black Jackals. Kiyoomi has texted you that his team had arrived and you were glad, finally done with waiting. You drove all the way down to Sendai from Tokyo just to see your boyfriend play in person. The day he asked you to be his girlfriend was years ago but it still made your heart dance in delight. You guys did have your fair share of fights and arguments but you both sat it out and solved it. After all, it wasn’t worth losing someone you loved over something as trivial as the placement of plates. 

After you guys graduated college, you became an interior designer for homes and Kiyoomi joined a Division 1 V. League team, the MSBY Black Jackals. He tells you how much he despised living with the team because of their messy habits, especially the former Inarizaki player Miya Atsumu and the former Fukurodani player Bokuto Kotarou. He tells you almost on a daily basis of how much he misses living with you. Despite being contracted to live in a residence with his teammates, he convinced the coach to let him stay with you on weekends or off days were there were no trainings. You always looked forward to those.

You sat in the lobby, waiting for him. You see the current Karasuno team walk into the gymnasium along with a couple of former players from high school. You even spot Miya Osamu across the stadium selling his onigiris that were famed to be super good. Maybe you should get some for Kiyoomi. 

“[f/n].” You turn your head to see Kiyoomi. It’s been almost three months since you saw him and even though you could’ve watched his game on TV, you wanted to see him in person despite the annoyingly long drive to Miyagi. 

You smile at him and rub some hand sanitizer onto your hands. Even though the two of you have been dating for about five or so years, some habits don’t change. Especially Kiyoomi’s fastidious ones that will literally break him if it’s not done properly. He takes hold of your relatively clean hand (hand sanitizer can only kill so many germs) and leads you to where you assume is where his team’s change room was. 

But instead he leads you away from the crowds where there was no one around. Surprisingly, he brings you into a tight hug. His hugs were always comfortable since you were shorter than him and no matter the weather outside, he was always warm. You favourite part of his hugs however, is that he always puts one arm around your waist and his other hand holding you head to him. It felt secure and welcoming. Hugging wasn’t something new to you two but there was always a list of conditions before you two could actually hug. You wondered why he bypassed all of them.

“I’m changing into my jersey soon so it’s okay,” he whispers and you smile. Of course, Kiyoomi wouldn’t hug you unless he was already planning on changing. 

“Make sure you win Kiyoomi,” you tell him, breaking apart the hug. 

“I’m so happy you call me Kiyoomi.”

“Hm? Why is that?” 

“Because I’ll lose my mind if you call me ‘Omi-kun’ or ‘Omi-Omi’.” You giggle.

“Aw who calls you that? I might want to steal those nicknames,” you say with a smug smile. 

“Miya and Bokuto. And recently Hinata as well,” he sighs, massaging his temples as if just thinking of his teammates give him a headache. You laugh at him. 

“Either way, make sure you win,” you tell him.

“I’ll win for you.”

“Wow, Omi-kun that is awfully corny of you.”

“Shut up,” he says, rolling his eyes before he grabs your hand, pulling you to place a kiss to your forehead. “I’ll give you a proper kiss if we win. That’s my promise,” he says.

“And if by rare chance that you don’t, I’ll give you a kiss. Do we have ourselves a bet?” you wager. Nothing was being lost in this bet and you liked it that way. It reminds you of his and Komori’s promise long ago at Nationals. Kiyoomi pulls out his phone to check the time. You notice his lock screen and nostalgia hits you. He was never the most romantic guy on Earth but he does have his ways. His lock screen has two polaroids that were taken by Ishida with her new polaroid camera Komori bought her for her birthday. The four of you were on a double date and Ishida begged you and Kiyoomi to pose for some pictures. Reluctantly, he complied and allowed the pictures to be taken. Despite claiming that it was stupid, you caught him one day, arranging the pictures on the dining table in a way he could take of picture of. It was your third year in college and he must've kept it since then. Though you thought it was cute that he has pictures of the two of you as his lock screen.

“Okay. I’ll see you after the game then [f/n],” he says as he lets go of your hand and heads towards the Black Jackal’s change room. At the same moment Bokuto and Miya race down the stairs with Hinata hopping along in the back. They stop to chat with Kiyoomi before Bokuto catches sight of you.

“Hi [l/n]-chan!” he shouts which gathers the attention of a couple of people and you can tell Kiyoomi wants to get the hell out of there. But he turns and gives you a small smile before walking away. You smile back before his teammates start to tease Kiyoomi on what he was doing with you. 

You never would’ve thought that you would be in a relationship with Kiyoomi this long. The old 17 year old you would’ve called yourself a liar while becoming a blushing mess. You cringe at how blatantly obvious you were with your feelings but some parts of you were happy that you were that obvious because you knew it gave Kiyoomi that extra confidence to confess to you because otherwise he would’ve never told you. 

No longer friends with Kiyoomi but you were under a better title that you were happy with. It makes you unconditionally happy as you repeat the phrase “Sakusa Kiyoomi’s girlfriend” silently to yourself. 

Taking a seat in the stadium, this time with the spectators and not on the bench, you patiently wait for the game to start knowing that by the end of the game the bet will be fulfilled. And you wish for him to win the bet because you really want them to win. A sulky Kiyoomi is probably the hardest to deal with but being with him this long, if a sulky Kiyoomi is what you have to deal with then you will deal with it. Why? Should there be another reason other than you love him? And you know that he loves you too which makes you undeniably happy. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, thank you for reading this story 
> 
> stay safe and healthy guys :))


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